The Way of the Vanilla One
by The Curmudgeon
Summary: There wasn't some great destiny for her future, nor a tangled web of tragedy for her past. She was just a teenager who did volunteer work and insincerely grumbled when her hands were so caked with charcoal they disappeared into the night. But Luffy said she was funny, and any protests lost the battle with laughter. OC-falls-into-One Piece story
1. Eaten

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own One Piece, nor am I making any profit off of this rather… subpar piece of fanfiction.

_Warnings:_ Egregious use of Fan Characters, violence, and bad humor. Also, potty mouths.

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><p><em>This is not, and will never be, a game.<em>

_Chapter One:_ Eaten

To say Kayla Thomas was scared would have been an understatement; she was pants-wettingly, adrenaline-pumpingly, heart-burstingly terrified, but not so much that she could not keep running. The fourteen year old's bangs clung to her sweat drenched forehead, and her sneakers slapped loudly against the hard pavement. A stitch was forming in her side, burning like a hot iron, and she was finding it harder and harder to breathe. This pushed her terror to the limit.

You see, Kayla Thomas was running for a very important reason. This reason wasn't something she had ever expected in her comfortable, short fourteen years of upper middle class life. But, because of this reason, she could not stop. Because of this reason, failure was not an option.

Kayla Thomas was running for her life, and she hated every second of it.

Several meters behind the young teen, a group of three men dressed in crisp uniforms and shiny, black, military-standard boots that clacked loudly on any surface, chased her. Their pistols were raised, ready to shoot at any given moment; in their other hands were swords, ready to slice open any soft flesh that might get in their way. They were Marines, and they would not show mercy, especially not to something like her.

"Halt, Parasite!"

"Someone, stop it before it reaches the docks!"

As soon as the sharp shouts hit the still air, a far louder noise shook over them. A single, ear-shattering _crack_ of the firing of a gun, and with it Kayla Thomas' head near exploded like an over-ripe melon. Her small body crumpled to the ground in a clumsy heap, blood and brain spattered over the ground around it. Seconds later, the three Marines trotted up alongside the corpse, one daring to nudge it with his shiny, black boot.

"Urgh," said Marine groaned. "Bloody pests. Seems to me they've been multiplyin' like rabbits these days."

One of his colleagues, the tallest of the three, snorted.

"Yeah," he said, "and you all hear tell of the one that's been going around all advertizing itself? Purple Haze, they call it. Been causing a whole lot of chaos across the Blues, no wonder the rest've been all riled up. Hive mentality, I swear."

The first Marine laughed while the third, a short, stocky sort of man with a large set of sideburns, gave the others a disapproving look.

"If you two have time to gossip like old ladies, you have time to clean this mess up," the third growled, lip curling in disgust as he glanced over the little broken body before them. His colleagues groaned in unison.

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><p>Early November in Abu Dhabi was of a more manageable climate than sixty percent of the year. At very least, one would not be assaulted by sauna-like conditions after walking out one's door in the morning. In the considerably cooler and drier confines of a beige, squat, walled building near one of the patches of expensive villas, students bowed their heads, smacked their gum in a manner similar to cows in a pasture, and generally did their best <em>not<em> to pay attention to the teachers up front of class.

A young woman, around eighteen years old, jogged through the halls, her shoes making light tapping noises as they hit the hard, smooth tiles, and her long, brown ponytail flying behind her. In her arms was a large cardboard box with random labels in Arabic and English scrawled across its brown sides. She huffed and puffed under its weight, her face a grimace.

At the end of a hallway the young woman stopped, the smooth bottoms of her shoes sliding a little due to lack of traction. She ducked into a small, cluttered, L-shaped room, with large, blinded windows, and hardly enough room to roam around, especially with the fifteen people it housed at that moment. With a puff, the brunette hefted the box over her head.

"Miss," she called out, "I found it."

An older, blonde woman, a teacher, looked up from the papers and money she was sorting with a group of students. This was the Community Service club; they dealt with fundraisers, recycling, Habitat for Humanity trips, and the occasional preschool playtime. It involved a lot of sorting trash, screaming children, and hauling of heavy objects, but it was generally rewarding in that fuzzy, I've-done-something-constructive way.

Generally.

"Set that by my desk, then, Melissa," the teacher said, turning back to her papers.

The young woman, Melissa, nodded and did as she was told. Tightening her ponytail with a firm tug, she glanced at the clock mounted between two blinded windows. Three-fifteen, five minutes until the day was over. I'll survive, she thought, making her way past her seated, bored fellow club members.

With a quick mental run-through of what she'd have to do when she arrived home (…_dishes, essay for DePaul, painting, try and get in touch with that one Welsh girl_…) the brunette drained the last of her tea from her thermos, shoved her books back into her bag, and then slung said bag over her shoulder.

The intercom buzzed; a boy with an expressive voice announced that people should _totally_ come to the high school play because it was going to be_ super_ fun and that all should hail the Grand and Illustrious Student High Council. After this hammy speech, the bell rang its sharp little tune and classes were dismissed.

Melissa weaved her way through the crowded hallways, trying desperately not to hit anyone with her large, heavy bag. This was rather hard, seeing as teenagers have a strange, unexplained urge to want to crowd in the middle of busy paths, chattering with their friends or groping their significant other. Melissa was quite sure she'd ended up whacking several people on her way from the electives hall to the front gate, and made sure to mutter her 'sorry's in advance.

Once outside the gate, the young woman made quickly her way across the busy street crammed with the white vans of would-be soccer moms. Would-be soccer moms in _burqas_.

She snickered at the thought as she started her trek home.

Abu Dhabi was an odd city in an odd country. There were only a few thousand native people in the entirety of the United Arab Emirates, and they all lived in the lap of luxury, with the exceptions of some oil-lacking areas to the north. The natives were paid large sums of money by the monarchy to exist and to have children. There were millions of expatriates and what were basically indentured servants working to turn the country into a place that would be widely respected and could support itself.

Melissa just wanted to get accepted into a university and leave. Two years of sunny days and heat and sand was enough for her; she wanted some seasons outside of 'boiling alive' and 'worst sunburn you will ever have'. She thought about this as she continued down Electra Street, her bag banging against the back of her thighs and its strap digging into her shoulder.

That and she thought about the oil painting waiting for her when she got home. There were so many layers of glazing that she had to do, and so little time to do it in. The brunette highly considered helping the painting dry with the help of a hairdryer or two or several. Maybe she could have tried shoving the thing in the oven and watching it bake.

Halfway home, she cut through a parking lot. It wasn't paved with asphalt, but instead with interlocking bricks like many of the sidewalks and parking lots in the city. A few bricks in these would sometimes be missing or broken.

Her left shoe caught on one of these, she flailed like a kindergartener on a sugar high, her hands shot out to save her and Melissa became newly acquainted with the ground.

"Ooow, God damn it," she groaned, stewing in the shame of her own failure.

The brunette pushed herself up into a sitting position, or, rather, she tried. Her left leg would not budge. When Melissa glanced backwards to see what was wrong, the problem became apparent; the lower half of her body was slowly ceasing to exist, as though it were being consumed by some invisible beast.

She gaped in confusion and terror.

"What the actual fuck!" she shouted, desperately trying to pull herself out of whatever had a hold of her. Slowly, slowly, the nothingness crept up her thighs, wrapped around her lower abdomen, and constricted her chest. All the while, Melissa continued to struggle and call out, her hazel eyes wide and bright with panic, her hands scrambling across the surface of the ground, the flesh tearing a bit as she did.

No one came to aid her. Abu Dhabi was, after all, a mostly empty city.

Soon there was no evidence that the young woman had been laying on the ground, screaming. There was only an empty parking lot and, in the distance, a mosque began the call to prayer.

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><p><em>AN:_ And that is that! Haha, well… I don't have much to say for myself with this. I've had the idea for quite some time now, so I just decided to finally go with it since I have writer's block with my other fic.

Pretentious quote thing at top? Check.

Blatant storyline beyond the also blatant main storyline? Check.

Is that storyline also pretentious? Ooooooh _yes_.

Let the fun begin.

Review? Yes, no, maybe, yes, no?


	2. Can't

**Disclaimer:** I do not own One Piece, nor am I making any money from this fanfiction.

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><p><em>Chapter 2: <em>Can't

Melissa was unceremoniously spat out of the ground, though a rather different ground than had eaten her, her body flying several feet into the air before crashing painfully on uneven pavement. After a few minutes of "That did not just happen", and "Oh god, can I wake up now?" along with a good long stewing in her own pain and self loathing, the brunette teen saw it fit to actually pay attention to her impossibly new surroundings. What she saw made the girl's hazel eyes widen and her mind begin spinning, buzzing about at an even faster rate than before; a set of raw fingers raked through dark bangs, nearly tearing out the long strands in frustration.

The bulky, twisted, metal-and-glass towers of Abu Dhabi had been replaced with humble, two-or-three floor, wooden buildings of a decidedly Western style. Gone was the odd blue paving, the large, gas-guzzling automobiles, and the constant, thick soup of the sandy, smoggy, salty, saturated, sizzling air. In their stead were worn, gray cobblestones, suspiciously abandoned dwellings, and the cleanest air Melissa had breathed in years peppered with the faint, distinct scent of a healthy stretch of sea. The street, unsurprisingly, held no sign that it had just completed the impossible task of spitting out an almost-eighteen year old girl, other than the rather bewildered product of this feat. Said product was just managing to lift her jaw from the ground, both literally and figuratively.

Slowly, slow as the stride of a teenager who has to put their cell phone on a particularly disliked teacher's desk, the girl eased herself into a standing position. She made sure to mind her raw hands, so as to not cause any more bleeding from the throbbing tears. With unsteady legs, Melissa straightened the strap of her bag. The whirling frenzy of her mind, all the fear and confusion and anxiety that made her limbs quake, was being crammed into a small, dark box in the dusty attic of her brain. She could deal with all that later, for now there were more important things.

Such as getting her bearings.

And some antiseptic.

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><p>A few hours of reconnaissance, the fancy word for poking one's nose in places it does not belong in the name of gathering information one may or may not need, and Melissa became very sure that there were only two explanations for her situation. Piles of maps and newspapers with screaming headlines lay helter-skelter on the worn wooden kitchen table of one of the many abandoned houses of the town. The brunette tentatively hovered over them, her bandaged fingers occasionally stretching forward to shift the sheets. It was all nonsense, all of it.<p>

So, either she'd gone insane or she was dreaming. Her throbbing hands protested against the latter.

'…_Steady rise in pirate attacks in the East Blue…'_

'…_Marine raid on pirate haven in the South Blue…'_

'…_Ten parasites executed this week at Logue Town…'_

Text jumped off of the pages, underscoring the situation with their blocky, black letters. The situation being something so impossible and insane and _cliché_ that the girl couldn't let it even properly enter her mind. There was no way, absolutely no way in hell that something like that could happen.

Absolutely impossible.

She had to be insane.

Melissa flopped down into a chair and buried her face in her bandaged hands; a few stray papers were sent flying from the sudden movement. The whirlwind that had been shoved to the back of her mind broke loose, kicking up mounds of stress and depression and frustration and helplessness and throwing them to the forefront. They barraged the inside of her skull, forcing her thoughts down the dark roads that one should not go down, or else they could be mugged or worse.

She might never see her family again. _Might_ being the most painful word; the possibility of a happy reunion dangled in front of her and it was pure torture.

"Damnit."

_Deep breaths. In out, in out. _Said a sardonic voice in the back of her mind.

"Damn it."

_In out, in out. Shove those feelings to the back of your mind._

"Damn it!"

_After all, you get to see your favorite anime up close and personal. In. Out._

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><p>Monkey D. Luffy was having a good week. He'd officially set out to sea for the first time, beat up that sea monster from his island on the way, and then his boat had gotten sucked into a whirlpool.<p>

Admittedly, that last part hadn't been so good. He'd luckily managed to get packed into a barrel, that had been fun, which had been later picked up by a pirate ship. There he'd met Coby, who was a bit of a wimp. Coby had had a dream too; he had wanted to be a Marine, but, sadly, he'd stupidly gotten himself stuck on a pirate ship working for some big old hag named Alvida. Haha, what an idiot.

Luffy had decided to help Coby out, so he'd beaten up Alvida. The both he and Coby had taken a dinghy out to sea again; Coby was really smart and navigated them all the way to an island with a Marine base. There they'd met Roronoa Zoro, a bounty hunter. A lot of stuff had happened then involving a guy with an axe for a hand (which Luffy would have thought was cool if the guy hadn't been a complete jerk), an idiot son, and some riceballs.

Basically, Coby had joined the Marines and Luffy had gotten an awesome swordsman to join his crew as his first mate. Score.

Luffy had had a good week, but he and his new, awesome swordsman of a first mate were hungry. They hadn't brought much food with them, since they'd expected to hit another island soon enough. Neither of them could navigate, too, which was a bit of a problem.

Ah well, they'd already gotten so far with just drifting along the currents, maybe they'd get lucky again.

"Oh," Zoro suddenly broke the silence, "a bird."

"Looks pretty tasty," Luffy said, and then shot up from his sprawled eagle position. "Let's eat it!"

His swordsman raised an inquisitive eyebrow. "How are you going to…?"

"I'll go get it!" Luffy replied, stretching his arms so that they gripped the long piece of wood perpendicular to the mast. "Watch my specialty! Gomu-Gomu no…!"

He went flying into the air

"_ROCKET!_"

Instead of Luffy catching the delicious looking bird, however, the bird ended up catching a rather delicious looking rubber man. Thus began the endless headaches of one Roronoa Zoro, former Pirate Hunter and current first mate of the Straw Hat pirates.

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><p>"Okay, I think that's it."<p>

Melissa stared at the objects on the table, all from her school bag or reluctantly lifted from shops in the abandoned town. There were her school books, her notebooks, tons of pens she'd taken off of the floors of classrooms, an empty Tupperware that had once held her lunch, an empty thermos, normal things. Then there was her change of clothes in case she had to bunk at a friend's house due to her dad suddenly being out of town on some business venture.

The brunette had had to discard her contacts due to the unlikelyness of finding cleaning solution or cases in this place. Large, dark framed glasses sat on the bridge of her nose instead as she surveyed the rest of the items.

She would need the change of clothes, but the books could be discarded. One didn't need a tome on IB Maths when navigating a world filled with pirates; she'd keep her library books, though. _Good Omens_ was much too good to throw in a rubbish bin. The girl would also keep a few notebooks and pens.

From the places around town it seemed anything really valuable had been either stolen by the circus-like pirates she'd seen prowling around or had been taken by the townspeople who had evacuated. Either way, she had nothing in terms of money other than the jewelry she wore. If worst came to worst, she could exchange it for a small bit of currency.

With a sigh, Melissa placed the necessary things back into her bag; clothes, various toiletries, notebooks, pens, a map and compass, a first aid kit, and dried food. After a moment's hesitation, she took a sheet of paper, a wanted poster, folded it, and shoved it into the deepest reaches of her bag.

"You can do this," she murmured to herself, nodded, and then marched out the door of her hideout…

…Only to nearly be run over by an orange haired girl chased by pirates.

'_I CAN'T DO THIS.'_

The next instant, a boy fell from the sky. A boy with black hair wearing a straw hat and sandals. A boy you all know as Monkey D. Luffy.

Melissa mentally cursed whichever god was responsible for her awful timing.

"Why did they shoot a canon at me?" the boy wondered aloud as he pulled himself off of the ground. "Damn it. At least I finally landed."

The circus-pirates lay on the ground in shock, completely bewildered as to how the straw hat boy could have survived falling from hundreds of feet in the air, along with direct contact with canon fire. Orange haired girl, who all of our readers know as Nami, recovered much faster than they and had an idea. A devious idea.

She cried out, melodramatically, "Oh boss! You came to save me! Thank you!"

Then, predictably, the girl legged it.

'_Way to throw him under the bus,' _Melissa thought, trying to be as invisible as possible without even moving from her spot just outside the doorway. For some odd reason, it actually seemed to be working. Or maybe she was just that uninteresting.

"She ran off again!" one of the pirates complained.

"We don't have to chase her anymore," pirate number two reasoned, "We've got her boss instead."

Pirate number three nodded as all three begun to enclose the straw hat boy. "Yeah, they're together anyway."

"Am I right boss?" the second pirate yelled, taking a swing at the boy and knocking the hat off of his head. "That map was Captain Buggy's treasure!"

The man was rewarded with a hard punch to the face that sent him flying. Monkey D. Luffy grabbed his hat before it hit the ground, a serious expression on his almost childish face.

"Don't you dare," he began, "mess with my hat."

This was said in the tone of the most serious death threat one can offer. Within seconds, the boy had knocked out the two remaining men. He didn't even break a sweat.

Melissa gulped. This was not good. She should not have been there.

"Holy shit," she said, and then clapped her hands over her mouth when she realized she said it aloud.

Luffy's head swiveled to face her. The brunette girl let out a very dignified squeak of fear.

'_Not good! Not good! Abort mission! Set phasers to 'Get the fuck out of here'!'_

"Oh hey!" the boy called out, oblivious to her distress. "Do you live here? Have you got any food? I'm starving!"

Before the frightened girl could generate an intelligent response along the lines of "Huh?" a certain orange haired thief demanded the black haired boy's attention from the balcony of a nearby building.

"Wow," Nami said, "you're really strong, huh? Those guys had swords and you beat them bare handed."

Luffy's head jerked to face her. Melissa let out a sigh of relief.

'_Safe!'_

"Who are you, anyway?" the boy asked the thief.

"I'm a thief," Nami stated. "I specialize in stealing from pirates. My name's Nami; want to be partners?"

"A thief who specializes in stealing from pirates?" Luffy repeated with a questioning lilt.

"Yeah," the thief affirmed. "If we team up, we can make a whole lot of money!"

"No, I don't want to team up with you," the straw hat boy stated, his tone blunt and final as a bowling ball to the head. He then turned to Melissa again, who had been considering her chances of surviving out in open sea with only herself to navigate. They were abysmally low, just like her chances of escaping this boy now that his attention was back to her.

"Hey, hey," he said. "You live here. You've got food, right? Gimme some."

"Huh?" was her eloquent reply. "Wh-why do you even assume-? Urgh I suppose I could, but only if you say the magic word."

"Now."

She deadpanned. "That isn't even close."

"Hey!" Nami called out, hopping down from the balcony. She wasn't going to give up on this so easily. "Wait a second," she gestured at Luffy's hat, "So, what's that hat? It's important, right? That's why you got so angry when it nearly got damaged? Is it expensive?"

"It's my treasure," said Luffy shortly.

"Are there any jewels inside it? Or a treasure map?"

"Aw, leave me alone. I just want to eat."

'_These two have one-track minds.'_

Melissa raked her hands through her hair in frustration, toying around with a few possibilities. _'Might as well stick with them for a few hours at most, just to meet them, then I'll find a way off this island.'_

"Look," she announced, in a clear voice that she usually used when managing events or instructing five year olds where to put their art supplies after craft time. "If you two want to continue this, let's do it inside. There'll probably be more pirates coming after," she hesitated on the name, not wanting to admit to reality, "…Nami, so it'd be best to hide."

"But I don't want to," Luffy said simply, a frown on his face.

"There'll be food."

A grin spread across his face, and he pumped his fist. "Let's go!"

Melissa sighed, shoulders slumping slightly. She wasn't doing so bad for someone who had had her world turned upside down a few hours before. She could do this. She would survive. She would see her family again no matter what. Her knees totally weren't shaking from the mental effort of actually speaking to people who were supposed to be fictional characters. Not at all.

'_I can't do this.'_

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><p>AN: Sweet Jesus, I finally finished this, did I? Took me long enough. Sorry for the late update, since I'm a senior in high school I've been dealing with my fast-approaching university application deadlines. What a pain.

I also apologize for any perceived over-use of angst, haha! I just don't think you'd be able to cross over to a different world without angsting. (I know I'd be a wreck, haha!)

Thank you all for reading, and please take the time to review on the way out!


	3. Novice

_Disclaimer:_ I do not own One Piece.

_Chapter Three_: Novice

"So you got separated from your crew?" Nami asked as she sat herself on the edge of a sturdy, wooden table.

About fifteen minutes prior the girl with the big blue bag, who later introduced herself as Melissa with an embarrassed smile, had led the thief and her prospective temporary partner, the boy who had fallen from the sky, to a small house. Opening the door for the pair, the brunette girl had scratched the back of her neck while muttering something about the food not having been raided or rotted so much there.

Nami was quite sure the other girl would be of no use to her after Nami managed to get the straw hat boy on her side. There had been no indication that Melissa was particularly strong or quick or clever. Quite on the contrary, the girl stumbled around as though she had the body of a baby giraffe; she'd even walked straight into a chair and then _apologized to it_. After the surprisingly firm assertion that they all hide for the moment the brunette's voice had taken a quiet, mumbling tone, and her eyes had refused to lock on to anyone else's.

Yes, Nami assessed, the girl was useless. The boy, however, was strong. He'd taken out three men who had had swords without even flinching, all because they'd touched his rather ratty old hat. It is always advantageous to have power like that at your side, especially when dealing with larger pirate crews like Buggy's. However, the boy was annoyingly blunt and simple. He didn't seem to care for much of anything besides his hat or food.

For example, his explanation for falling from the sky had been this: "My crewmate saw a bird. I tried to eat the bird. The bird tried to eat me. Then a canon shot me down and those guys messed with my hat and I do you have any more meat?"

This said between large mouthfuls of dried beef, hard cheese, and overripe fruit that Melissa had salvaged from various cabinets.

"How many guys are there in your crew, anyway?" the brunette inquired, brows raised.

It wasn't a bad question, Nami noted, she'd been about to ask it herself. The thief wondered if the boy's crewmates were as strong as he was and, if they were, would they possibly consider teaming up with her.

Luffy blinked and replied, "Only one other person."

Melissa made a strangled noise that quickly turned into a fit of quiet laughter.

"You're mean," the black haired boy stated, folding his arms across his chest and pouting childishly.

She raised her bandaged hands in a defensive gesture, laughter fading to small chuckles. "S-sorry! Sorry! Didn't mean it like that! It's tough luck you ended up in a place like this though."

"Eh? Why?"

"There's, like, pirates and stuff... actually, I have no clue what's going on here." She blinked owlishly and turned to Nami as if expecting the orange haired woman to suddenly, and conveniently, dish out several paragraphs worth of the town's back-story, all wrapped in a shiny red bow.

"Wait a second," the thief protested, "aren't you from here?"

"Um." The brunette suddenly became very interested in the floor, her hand moving to scratch the back of her neck. "I'm… not. I sort of just ended up here. Actually, I have no idea where _here _is."

It was Luffy's turn to laugh now, and he did loudly. Melissa's face became a violent shade of tomato red and she seemed to be trying to convince the floor to swallow her whole. Nami merely massaged the bridge of her nose and wondered if any of this was worth the possible extra muscle.

"Then whose food have we been eating?" she asked.

"I don't really know, Miss. Some villager's, obviously" the brunette girl replied. "It would rot if we just left it here, so we might as well help ourselves, right?"

Nami couldn't decide if the girl was just had strange morals or was an idiot. Either way, it wouldn't hurt to explain the town's situation. Maybe it would help convince the strong boy to join Nami in her quest for money, money, and more money.

The thief sighed dramatically and stated, "Well, the general gist of it is that the Buggy pirate fleet has taken over this town, and the villagers have evacuated because of it."

"Is he strong?" Luffy interjected. "This pirate named Nami?"

Her temper audibly snapped. "_I'M_ NAMI! THE PIRATE IS _BUGGY_!"

"How could you even make that mistake…?" Melissa muttered, giving Luffy a sidelong look as he began to pick his nose.

"Buggy's a really famous pirate," Nami continued, her eyebrow twitching a bit in irritation. "He's well known for his love of cannons. They say that some kids in a village he had been staying at made fun of his nose, and he destroyed the entire place in retaliation. They also say he has some sort of strange power."

"But why isn't there anyone in this village?" the straw hat boy asked, his face confused.

She snapped again. "I just _said_ they've evacuated! They're trying to not get killed!"

The other girl, her hand raised as though she were in a classroom, piped up, "But, Miss, why are you here? Are you raiding the village? That doesn't seem very… good."

"YOU'RE ONE TO TALK!" Nami massaged her temples, a vein throbbing in her forehead. "I rob _pirates_, not villagers."

Melissa muttered a quick 'Sorry' while Luffy just laughed and told Nami to calm down.

The orange haired thief, surprisingly, did as she was told, and continued, "My goal is to get one hundred million beli, so that I can buy a certain village."

Luffy snapped to attention then, his face conveying both confusion and interest.

"Buy a village?" he asked. "You've gotta steal from a lot of pirates then."

Nami smirked. "I've got a plan for that." She then retrieved a roll of paper from the inside of her clothes and brandished it proudly. "This is a map of the Grand Line, and I just stole it!"

Melissa let out a low whistle and stated, a small bit of what Nami took as admiration in her voice, "Now that right there, Miss, that's _legit_."

"I know!" the thief exclaimed with a grin. "I'm going to steal some treasure from Buggy, of course, and then I'll go to the Grand Line. There I'll be able to steal from even greater pirates with even more treasure."

She then turned to Luffy, her face alight. "What do you think? Want to team up and nab some treasure? You're pretty strong, I could really use that. You'll even get a share of the loot."

The boy blinked, a thought seemed to register in his cobweb-filled brain, and inquired, "Hey, do you know how to navigate?"

Nami's grin widened even more. "Of course! I'm probably the best navigator there is. No one knows the sea like I do."

"That's great!" Luffy exclaimed. His fists pumped into the air and his grin threatened to break his face in half. "We're heading to the Grand Line too!"

"Really?"

"Yeah, join my crew as the navigator! Become a member of our pirate crew."

The air in the room seemed to take a certain chill to it as Nami's body became taut as a bowstring, her eyes became like stone, and her mouth curled down into a scowl.

"NO!" she yelled, and then groaned. The tenseness did not leave her frame. "Urgh, you're a pirate? Forget I said anything then. Actually... I get it now, you're going to use that map in your hat to find some big treasure, aren't you?"

Luffy frowned and placed his hand on his straw hat, lifting it off of his dark hair in a reverent manner.

"I told you," he responded, face decidedly blank, "It's not a treasure map."

The thief scoffed and rolled her eyes. Like she was going to believe that.

"Then why would you call a ratty old thing like that your treasure?" she nettled.

Grinning the face-splitting grin, the boy stated, "I got this from a friend of mine ages ago! It's my precious treasure. I swore that I'd gather a crew and become a pirate to that person."

In the background, Melissa seemed to decide it was high time to vamoose. Understandably so, no one wanted to hang around with a pirate. She carefully retrieved her big blue bag from the corner she had stashed it in, slung it over her shoulder, and winced when it slammed against the backs of her thighs. Then, Nami saw out of the corner of her eye, the brunette slipped out the backdoor with the barest hint of sneakiness upon baby giraffe-ness.

With a sigh, the orange haired thief massaged her forehead. So the boy was of no use to her after all, being a pirate and a naïve one at that. What a waste of time, and with no way to salvage the situation.

"Pirate this, pirate that," she murmured, sliding off of the table she had been perched on. "What a horribly stupid era!"

* * *

><p>Bag slamming painfully against her thighs, Melissa quickly strode through the streets; her black shoes made sharp tapping noises against the stones as she went. She was happy that she had gotten to meet the Straw Hat captain and soon-to-be navigator. It was a sort of silver lining, having been able to meet people she'd been reading about since she had been in elementary.<p>

Now, however, Melissa had to go back to thinking seriously about just how she would go about accomplishing her new goal. She'd need a boat, and, preferably, a crew of some sort to keep her from accidentally eviscerating herself with a butter knife while in the Grand Line.

The Straw Hats were not an option for that crew. She'd read enough fanfiction to know she wasn't going near that path with a thirty-five and a half foot pole. Most especially because Melissa wasn't some pretty, powerful, Chosen One of a Sue that could defeat the whole Grand Line through the power of her perky tits. She was an art student, and not a very good one at that, who couldn't win a fight against an asthmatic, arthritic ninety year old.

So, for the moment, the brunette would have to set off on her own and hope for the best.

* * *

><p>"I'm a <em>dumbass<em>."

A novice alone at sea is, unlike what adventure stories would tell you, basically a death sentence. No potable water except for the rain or any you had brought with you, no food except for questionable fish and your own supplies, and the elements are free to toy with you in the most sick, twisted, and bizarre ways they could think of.

As Melissa's body violently rejected its breakfast for the fifth day running, she couldn't help but think she should have listened to her grandfather's Navy stories. Maybe then she would have had the sense not to do something so completely stupid. It had been around two weeks since she'd left that town, and the American was pleasantly shocked that she'd managed to survive as long as she had. However, she was running low on just about every bit of supply while her temperature was running high enough to fry her brain into mush.

"I'm a _dumbass_," Melissa repeated, massaging her aching muscles. She noted her thinning frame and wild hair with a sort of dull fascination, thinking how she might be able to scare small children soon enough.

Then she dunked her head into water that was not rank with vomit and set to trying to correct at least one of those problems.

* * *

><p><em>AN_: Well, there's the next chapter. (Hopefully we'll get to some exciting bits/MOAR PLOT soon enough.) Happy holidays to you all! Please review on the way out.


	4. Begin

Disclaimer: I do not own One Piece, and if I did _why would I be writing this_?

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><p>Chapter Four: <em>Begin<em>

Purple Haze was not well known for being merciful. Quite on the contrary, the papers went to great lengths to elaborately paint his bloody, fiery escapades in brutal Technicolor. From burning one Marine base to the ground in one story to butchering battalions in another, there seemed to be no limit to this Parasite menace's lust for chaos and destruction. The publicity was wonderful, really, though there was one problem with it all; like most things the World Government tended to spew out in those days, none of it was real.

And that would have been perfectly fine, if it weren't for the fact that the World Government wasn't the one fabricating it.

The man, Purple Haze, allowed himself to chuckle as his ship slowly approached a large island. His thin, coral pipe dangled idly from his lips and his dark eyes surveyed the scrambling of the motley crew. They were the lowest of the low, Purple Haze's crew; former slaves, murderers, and Parasites. He didn't trust a single one of them, nor they him, but they were the only people willing to follow a particularly mad Parasite in doing particularly mad things.

A long breath escaped the dark eyed man, and with it came a twisting stream of thick, violet mist. The stream curled and tumbled gracefully in the air for a moment before he breathed it back in with an exaggerated gulp.

"Shit, the bastard's starting already!"

"All of y', get below deck _now_!"

Erratic scrambling, and Purple Haze began to breathe out slowly, large amounts of the thick purple steam leaking from his mouth and nose. The steam wafted to the island, sluggishly coating it in a lilac fog.

That's when the screams began.

Purple Haze smiled to himself. A long time ago, in a place he would never see again, there had been a girl, an annoying, tactless thing, who had told him he would make an awful criminal. The dark eyed man wondered what she would think if she saw him now, if she saw what he was doing.

Scream, probably.

* * *

><p>In the East Blue, the Going Merry sailed on warm midday winds. Its navigator, Nami, reclined in a lawn chair on deck, her fingers absentmindedly unwinding the heavy bandages from her new pinwheel-and-mikan tattoo. The thief's mind replayed the past few weeks, refusing to believe that they had even occurred. Like it was all a dream and she would wake up any minute to find Arlong's mark still tattooed to her skin, no idiotic Straw Hat crew in sight.<p>

It wasn't a dream, though. Just a few days before, Luffy, the idiotic captain of the Straw Hat pirates, had defeated Arlong and destroyed Arlong Park. After many years of slaving under the constant pressure of the fishman's thumb, Nami was free to do what she wanted. She could finally set about traveling the world and mapping it like she had always said she would when she was a little girl.

The navigator's face was set in a content little smile until the newsbird came. Then her expression turned deadly.

"Another price increase!" she huffed, fishing in her pocket for the appropriate coin. "Don't you think you're getting a bit _too_ expensive?"

Only a mournful 'caww' escaped the tired bird. It was an old hand at this sort of work, so it was used to dealing with irate customers. The best thing was just to salute and hope they keep their rants short, which they usually didn't.

"Raise the price again," Nami threatened in vain while presenting the right payment, "and I won't be buying your paper anymore."

The crew's sharp-shooter, Usopp, who had been experimenting with something questionable on deck, tossed the irate woman a questioning look. Usopp had joined the crew shortly after Nami had forged her rather loose, and doomed, alliance with them. The seventeen year old was a coward and a liar who had often ran through his village calling wolf about pirates invading. This habit hadn't helped when pirates really had come to call.

Luffy, the first mate and former pirate hunter Roronoa Zoro, and Nami had helped the chronic liar to defend his village from the invasion. Afterwards, Usopp had joined them and they had gained the caravel Merry Go from his friend Kaya as a token of gratitude.

The sharp-shooter was a knobby looking, awkward teen with an unnaturally long nose and a mane of curly black hair covered by a curry-yellow bandana.

Without even looking up from his work, he asked, "What're you getting so riled up about? It's just a newspaper."

Nami shrugged and replied in a nonchalant manner that didn't even hint that she had been threatening a bird a few seconds ago, "Daily expenses add up after a while."

"Aren't you done saving up money, though?"

"Don't be stupid!" she replied, eyebrow twitching as though her crewmate had just asked the most idiotic question in the English language. "From now on, I'm only saving money for _myself_. No way am_ I_ going to be a penniless pirate!"

"Okay, okay!" Usopp shooed her with his free hand, accepting this explanation. "I'm in the middle of developing my secret Tabasco star, so stay back. An enemy who gets this in their eye will-"

"KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF!" a voice suddenly growled from above.

Luffy was punted down from a higher level of the deck, and landed in such a way that Usopp's invention was splashed in the sharp-shooter's very vulnerable eyes. The curly-haired teen screeched in pain.

"Oh come on! Can't I have just one!" the captain whined as though his crewmate was not screaming from metaphorical fire being set to his eyes.

"Absolutely not!" growled the Straw Hat's cook, Sanji. He had blond hair that covered one eye and a strange, curly eyebrow above the visible one. Sanji had worked at the floating restaurant Baratie until circumstances had convinced him to join and follow his childhood dream of finding the All Blue, a stretch of ocean where all the fish in the world could be found.

Sanji was also, simply put, a skirt chaser of comedic proportions.

"These are Nami-san's precious mikan trees!" the man proclaimed. "I won't allow you to lay even a single finger on them! Nami-swan, rest assured~! My defense powered by love is infallible~!"

"What a tool," observed a half-asleep, green-haired swordsman; Roronoa Zoro, the first mate of the crew, and lover of booze, napping, and over-the-top training.

"We're finally on our way to the Grand Line," cheered Luffy, forgetting about the oranges for the moment.

Nami sighed and opened her paper.

"The world's in such turmoil these days," she murmured, choosing to ignore the idiocy surrounding her. "_Another_ coup d'état in Villa…"

A thin sheet of paper slipped out of the fold of the paper, fluttering to the deck. Its contents were displayed to all on deck, and cries of shock rang through the air.

* * *

><p>Melissa stared at the wall of the holding cell, eyes glazed behind her glasses, and cold hands clenched together. Just that morning, she had been hauled out of the water by some Marines, which had been a godsend; her supplies had officially run out, and her dinghy had been eaten by an irate seaking. Due to 'shipwrecked' people often being a ploy by pirates in the area, however, the Marines had confiscated her belongings, thrown her in the hold, and gotten the hell out of dodge.<p>

The brunette ran her fingers through her bangs and huffed. She didn't have the first aid kit anymore, so no more fever-reducing drugs. According to an officer she'd asked, the pills she'd been using ("The blue bottle with the weird roses on it?") had recently been found by doctors to carry poisons that ate at the lining of the digestive tract, which explained the bits of blood she'd been seeing in her vomit for the past three days.

However, without any sort of medication in her system, the American could feel the fever slowly eating at her body and mind.

"Christ, I can't do anything right, can I?" Melissa wondered aloud. "Look at me, guys! I'm a failure at _all of the things_."

"Good to see you're admitting to it," bit a voice from the hatch. The voice was followed by a pinkish woman descending, a tray balanced in her hands and a newspaper tucked into the back of her trousers.

Melissa sighed. "Petty Officer-?"

"_Chief_ Petty Officer Ren, girl, and don't you forget it," the woman corrected with a smirk. "I've got your slops."

"Isn't that a bit below your ranking, Miss?" The brunette cocked her head to the side, glazed eyes confused.

Ren snorted. "Everyone seems to have decided you're a Parasite and they don't want to get Parasite-cooties or some like. Superstitious idjits."

Melissa wondered vaguely what a Parasite was; she'd seen the term in one of the newspapers she'd read but it hadn't fully explained what they were. They hadn't been mentioned in the manga series to her knowledge. With a mental sigh, she considered that maybe it had been, and she hadn't noticed; the series was over six hundred chapters of material, after all, and Oda did love to just vaguely drop hints and not mention them again until years later.

The pink-haired woman slipped the tray through a slot in the bars, and Melissa went to retrieve it. Her brows rose nearly to her hairline.

"Shit on a shingle?" she said, observing the hard piece of toasted biscuit, thick white sauce, and chipped beef.

Ren let out a barking laugh. "Don't let our cooks hear you say that! You're s'pposed to call it S.O.S. these days."

"I'll need to send out an S.O.S. after eating this," grumbled the teen, eyeing the food with apprehension.

Ren smirked and situated herself on a small metal chair outside the cell, unfolding the newspaper. Melissa retreated back to her hard bed, tray in hand. After a few minutes of attacking the unholy juxtaposition of rock-like bread, overly floury thick roux, and processed meat the teen gave in to her fever-loosened tongue and decided to initiate conversation.

"So, what's in the news, Chief Petty Officer?" she prodded in the nicest tone she could muster while becoming more and more irritated at the inedible qualities of her meal.

The older woman gave a snort at the brunette's antics.

"Well," she began, "some kid, 'round your age I'd reckon from the photo, got himself a bounty of thirty-mil."

"How? What's his name?" Melissa asked, already knowing the answer.

"Seems he beat some powerful pirates the past few weeks; Buggy the Clown, Don Krieg, and Arlong. Don't know if I believe it," Ren replied. "Says his name's Monkey D. Luffy. Familiar surname, that."

* * *

><p>Said pirate's face was split into a shit-eating grin as he rubbed the back of his neck and laughed carelessly.<p>

"Looks like we're wanted men now!" he proclaimed, holding out the poster with pride. "Thirty million beli, huh? Wow!"

Nami cradled her forehead in her hand. Why did she agree to join this crew again?

"As usual," she said, "you completely fail to grasp the entire situation! Don't you realize this means your life is at risk? With a bounty like that, Marine Headquarters with be after you, along with a lot of strong bounty hunters!"

Her words were ignored as Luffy continued to laugh.

Usopp was grinning too, pointing at the poster with enthusiasm. "Look! I'm in the picture too! I might be famous!" he gloated to a sulking Sanji.

"As if," the cook bit acidly back around his customary cigarette. "That's just the back of your head."

"Don't be jealous! Once we become more infamous, we might all get one!"

"With this, we can't afford to loiter around the East Blue anymore…" Nami murmured to herself, as usual the only one putting any thought into the situation.

"Alright men!" Luffy cheered. "Let's head straight to the Grand Line!"

The sharp shooter and the cook agreed wholeheartedly.

"Hey," broke in Zoro, who had been doing his normal lounging around the deck. "I see an island up ahead."

"You do…?" Nami questioned, and then realized where they were. "That island, it's proof that we're close to the Grand Line. It's home to the famous town of…"

* * *

><p>"Loguetown? That's where this ship is headed?" Melissa asked when she finally finished her food.<p>

"Yeah," Ren affirmed. "The town of the beginning and the end; Old Gold Rodger's hometown and grave, and the place where this damned pirate age started. We should be there soon enough since this ship is pretty quick, and we'll deal with you there."

The teen nodded and felt her body unconsciously stiffen. There was just something about the way the older woman said 'deal with you' that put her on edge. It made something at the back of her feverish mind begin knocking at the gears, trying desperately to get them to work. She shook it off, and smiled to herself. At very least she'd be that much closer to the Grand Line and that was what mattered.

* * *

><p>When the Marine ship landed at Loguetown, Melissa found herself handcuffed and herded onto land like some sort of animal. Men with stony faces and shiny black shoes roughly pushed her forward, causing her wobbly legs to misstep and bend in uncomfortable ways. She gritted her teeth and kept moving forward, the banging thing at the back of her mind practically screaming at her in intelligible phrases.<p>

Only when she saw that all of them had their guns at the ready did the gears finally start turning.

'…_Ten Parasites executed this week at Logue Town…'_

"_Everyone seems to have decided you're a Parasite…"_

The teen didn't even allow herself time to curse at her own stupidity, instead she screamed and kicked the nearest officer in the gonads. The sheer idiocy of the move made the soldiers freeze, giving her enough time to make a break for it. Her legs felt like cooked noodles, but she urged them forward; her terror fueling her speed.

Melissa managed to get several yards away before the first shot rang out. Several more yards before the first one hit her, setting fire to her nerve endings.

_Dumbass._

_Dumbass._

_Dumbass!_

* * *

><p>AN: And thus, after lots of exposition, me failing at writing seriousness, and jokes about sea-rations (which I am _so sorry_ I did, that was really lame and urgh) we're finally getting somewhere here! And that somewhere will hopefully not be any worse than the other situations that Melissa seems to get herself into, but heh heh heh. At very least, there will be more interaction with canonical characters.

Thanks to the wonderful 'A Thinking Man's Radish', who was the only one who reviewed last chapter and her review was the highlight of my day! (Other than, y'know, it being Christmas Eve at the time.)

Also thanks to all who have faved and alerted this fic! I get a stupid smile on my face when you do!

Please review on the way out! It is much appreciated!


	5. Idiot

**Disclaimer: **I don't own One Piece. Trust me.

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><p><em>Chapter Five<em>: Idiot

To be perfectly frank, a bullet lodged in your hamstring and a hole through your shoulder is not a comfortable situation to be in. Just imagine someone sticking you with a sharp poker, giving it a hearty twist, and forcing you to listen to _Achy Breaky Heart_ all the while and you'll have a close comparison for the amount of discomfort. Honestly speaking, it's not something that would be highly conducive to the act of running and evading attackers.

It had to be a collaborative miracle between every god to have ever been prayed to that Melissa somehow managed to keep running with a left leg that threatened to commit passive-aggressive mutiny, crimson life leaving a spotted trail behind her, and a fever that could be classified as very not good. Her shoes, now scuffed and dirtied beyond recognition, beat out their stumbling staccato against the smooth pavement of Loguetown as hot sticky liquid stained her clothes.

Far behind the teen, voices called out in confusion and anger and she shoved through a confused crowd and her leg felt like lead and Jesus she was going to die in a goddamn _anime_, how lame is that?

One of the voices kept following her and getting louder. Melissa tried to force her adrenaline to pump through her veins at inhuman levels, but it was already wearing off and her chest felt like it was full of broken glass that kept stabbing, prodding her lungs, diaphragm, heart.

The voice was right behind her and she could not understand it because humans really shouldn't bleed so much; her vision was fading and since when was the pavement so close…?

Then there was darkness, warm and comforting as the womb.

* * *

><p>Luffy grinned his impossibly wide grin as he strode through the crowded streets of Loguetown. His day just could not get any better. He was in the Gold Roger's, his <em>hero's<em>, hometown and was going to see the place where the great man had been executed two decades prior. Luffy was going to see the place where the Great Pirate Era and the mad scramble for One Piece had begun.

To put things in perspective, Luffy was so excited he wasn't even thinking about meat.

He was barely even bothered when someone barreled by him, nearly knocking him to the ground. The Strawhat Captain just regained his balance and continued on his way, grin firmly in place. Except wait.

Wait, wait, wait.

Wait.

He stops walking.

Barely used neurons began to fire in the teenage pirate's brain, synapses carried electric thought from cell to cell. It dawned on Luffy that he'd seen that person before, only for a short while, yeah, but they'd been logged into his little mental list of 'Good Guys'. His grin somehow widened, causing ten students of anatomy to sob at the butchering of their science.

It's the girl with the big blue bag, he realized, the one who had been around when he'd met Nami. The Big Bag Girl had been kind of mean and had weirdly disappeared as quickly as she'd appeared, but she'd given him food and anyone who gives a stranger food must be a good guy.

And he'd thought today couldn't get any better.

Without a thought to what Big Bag Girl had been running from, because she'd obviously been trying to escape something, the Strawhat teen began to jog after her.

"Hey!" he called out.

She sped up, teetering precariously as she did.

"Hey!" he called out louder, steadily bridging the distance between them.

People cast weird looks at both of them, but people did this to the young pirate so much on a regular basis that he didn't even bat an eyelash. Though it might have been that he just didn't notice or care. He sidestepped some weird red liquid on the pavement without a second thought.

"Heeeey, bag girl!" he yelled, only a few feet behind her now. Only a deaf person wouldn't have been able to hear him.

The Big Bag Girl teetered again, but this time, instead of hastily scrambling to regain her balance, she fell forward and lay prone in the street. Luffy screeched to a halt with a frown. Why'd she go and do that?

He sat down next to her, brow furrowed in an exaggerated, comical expression of confusion. There was really only one thing to do in such a situation; he poked her shoulder.

"Heeey."

Poke.

_Groan._

A grin spread over his face when the groan escaped the prone girl.

"Hey!"

Poke.

No groan that time, so he frowned again and- Hey, that was blood. That was a lot of blood, just covering the brunette girl like cherry syrup on ice cream. That was blood, leaving a thin, spotted trail along the gray ground.

Now Luffy's frown was not a strange caricature of a human expression. It was the genuine article, a subtle downturn of the corners of the mouth that screamed something was wrong. He hauled the unconscious girl onto his back with that expression on his face, and began jogging through the streets.

Okay, first save good guy Big Bag Girl from bleeding to death in the street, then execution stand.

If he's lucky, maybe Big Bag Girl would want to come along and she'd buy him meat.

* * *

><p>When Melissa woke up sometime later with the mother of all headaches, she found that someone's face was uncomfortably close to hers. Her logical reaction was to, of course, slam their foreheads together with as much force as was possible in her condition.<p>

CRACK!

The person, a certain black haired, Strawhatted captain, sprang back, cradling his head and laughing like a madman.

"Haha! Ow, that hurt bag girl!" he said between laughs.

Her eyebrow twitched at the noise. That was a dumb move; now her head hurt even more.

"W-what the hell, man?" she sputtered. "Why the hell were you so far in my personal space?"

"You were making funny faces in your sleep," the boy stated as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. He sat himself down on a metal fold chair and clapped the soles of his sandals together a few times.

Melissa stared at him in disbelief for a moment before turning her attention to her surroundings. She sat in a narrow, rickety bed with light sheets and what might possibly be the hardest pillow in the known universe. The room was small and gray with a single window of frosted glass and walls that were deeply indented with cracks like spider webs. There was only one chair, and it was occupied by a complete idiot.

Her hands wandered to her left thigh and right shoulder. Rough bandages were wrapped around flesh that had more than likely been carefully stitched together. She rolled her shoulder and felt the gentle pull of the stitches on the moving skin. Yeah, definitely stitches.

The girl glanced at the other occupant of the room, with his grin and cheer, and felt her back tense. Well, this was one of the situations she had wanted to avoid, had she even thought of situations she would want to avoid, besides the obvious death.

"Um, Luffy," Melissa began. The next words felt awkward and stiff in her mouth, but she powered through the feeling. "Thanks for, um, helping me."

"No problem!" he replied with a bigger grin. "The guy who stitched you up was kind of funny. He kept wanting to switch your toes around in your sleep, but at least he said that he always treats 'specimens' like you free of charge!"

She stared at him, hoping he was joking. His clueless grin stayed in place, and she felt the urge to slam her head against the wall repeatedly.

"Hey, hey, bag girl!" Luffy exclaimed with excitement, his feet clapping together again.

The female teen sighed. "I have a name, you know, and it's a damn nice one, too."

"Huh, really?"

"Yes, I told you the first time we met."

"I don't remember that, you must have been imagining things."

"No, I specifically remember introducing myself as 'Melissa'."

"That's a weird name."

"Hardly any weirder than 'Luffy'."

His face screwed up into a childish pout for a moment, before breaking out into another grin.

"Hey, hey, Melissa!" the Strawhat boy amended, excitement still present. "Join my crew!"

There are people out there who would die of happiness if Monkey D. Luffy uttered those words to them. Melissa could only stare at him for the longest pause to have ever been awkward. Her vocal chords felt as though they had been bathed in cement and her mouth was as dry as the Sahara. He stared back at her, grinning because there was no way she would say no.

The girl cleared her throat.

"Yea-," she blurted out, and then stumbled to cover it up, "No. Hell no. Hell the fuck no."

Luffy clapped his feet together again. "Why not?"

"The better question is why you'd want me on your crew, I think. I have no skills that would be useful at, like, all. I am legitimately the most useless person you could ever meet, I mean, yeah; I'm trying to get to the Grand Line, but-."

He looked excited and said, "You're trying to get to the Grand Line? That's awesome! My crew's headed there, too!"

Melissa pushed her fingers through her hair and huffed. "Look, you're _not _listening. I'd only screw everything up. I'd be the worst addition to your crew ever."

"I don't care," the boy replied, folding his arms over his chest. "I've already decided. You're joining my crew."

"When the hell did you decide that?"

"Just now."

She cradled her head in her hands, the space just behind her eyes throbbing in time with her pulse. After a moment's pause she took a deep breath.

"This is stupid," the girl groused. "You are stupid."

Luffy just laughed at her, his whole body taken by random mirth. Melissa scowled.

"Plus, I probably can't go anywhere because I've had a bullet go through my leg," she reasoned. "You should probably just leave me here."

The boy stopped his laughing and paused for a moment, before literally being knocked back by the force of a sudden realization.

"Oh yeah, I forgot!" he cried out. He then jumped from his perch on the uncomfortable metal chair and rushed from the room.

Leaning back on her rock-like pillow, the brunette girl quirked an eyebrow and wondered what exactly was going on in that boy's head. She hoped it was something that would get her out of joining his damned crew, because, quite honestly, the thought of joining the Strawhat Pirates made her a little ill.

Joining them would help her with her goal a lot. They protected their members, so she'd be able to figure out this whole Parasite nonsense and get to where she needed to be with a slightly lower possibility of getting killed than she would have otherwise. The Strawhats weren't bad people, she knew, and she would probably enjoy traveling with them. There was a problem, however. If Melissa joined them, she'd never want to leave. If she joined them, it would hurt so much because she would have to leave.

Like many other times over the past weeks, Melissa wished she were back home doing something dumb like making fun of the impossibly awful park jobs below her apartment with her dad in the howling wind of the late afternoon or wandering one of the city's many malls with her friends like a pack of sardonic vagabonds.

A loud crash came from the next room, and Luffy returned carrying a wooden crutch and a medium-sized bag. He then shoved these items under Melissa's nose, his face eager.

"The hell are those for?" she asked with eloquence.

"The funny doctor guy said that you can leave," the boy replied, waving the objects in front of her. "He said you just need to use the crutch and take some weird medicine for a while."

"I just got shot in the leg and shoulder," the girl deadpanned. "This guy is the worst doctor ever, or a deus ex machina."

Luffy grinned. "C'mon, get out of bed! We're going to see the execution stand!"

"The one where Gold Rodger died?"

"Yeah!"

Melissa sighed heavily. "So that's how it is. You just want to see where your mancrush died. Not creepy at all, bro, not creepy at all."

He just continued grinning at her in a way that tells her that he had absolutely no idea what what she said even meant. She snatched the crutch away from him and swung her legs out of bed. The girl offhandedly noted that her injured leg is strangely stiff, filed that under things to be concerned about later, and pushed herself off of the bed using the crutch.

"Let's get this show on the road, Strawbro," Melissa announced as she uncertainly hobbled towards the small room's door.

The boy blinks for a moment and beams at her.

"Alright!"

"Allons-y."

"Huh."

"It's French for 'we outta here'."

"That's dumb."

"Your face is dumb."

'_After all, nothing happens in Loguetown_,' Melissa thinks. '_I would remember if something did._'

* * *

><p>AN: Hi there! I haven't updated in almost two months, sorry about that! I had exams after break and IB started to kill my soul even more than usual, especially IB Art and urgghhhhhh. So I apologize to anyone who actually cares, haha! Hopefully I'll be able to update more in the future.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who reviewed, alerted, and favorite! Especially to those who reviewed because even if they were the worst flames I would love them forever because I am _a glutton for pain_.

Please leave a review! Your opinions are always appreciated.


	6. Ignore

_Chapter Six:_ Ignore

It was mid-afternoon by the time Luffy and Melissa found the execution stand. The sun's rays were beginning to cause the shadows to creep along the facades of the buildings and the surface of the walkways like so many hands. Not only had the detour with the doctor caused a delay, but Luffy had somehow managed to not realize that the square where the execution stand was located would be in the center of the town. Add in Melissa's hobbling gate, and it was surprising that they managed to arrive at any time before nightfall.

The square was packed with people going about their day and, as Melissa observed, tourists. Tourists with cameras, socks in sandals, and Hawaiian shirts lingered in the most inconvenient places, unknowingly blocking the paths of locals. She quirked her brow at them; was this a popular vacation spot for the East Blue or something?

If a world is made up of islands, how do people get their relaxing holidays?

"The execution stand," Luffy breathed.

His face was reverent as he stared at the scaffolding. Melissa quirked an eyebrow, but said nothing; it starkly reminded her of her own expression when she'd stood in the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. She'd just stood there staring, eyes wide and mouth slightly open like Luffy's was, hoping that, if she stared at the windy strokes of exuberant color for long enough, she would be able to absorb some of the man's stray brilliance.

The girl wondered if it would be rude to let Luffy continue to do an excellent impression of a fish statue. He and she were standing in the middle of the square and even the tourists were tossing them weird looks; a kid in a straw hat staring at a place of execution like it was the Western Wall and a girl with a crutch and thick brown blood stains on her clothes who looked like a stiff wind could knock her over.

Melissa couldn't see what was so wrong with that picture.

"The place where the greatest pirate in history died, the place where the Pirate Age began," Luffy murmured to himself.

The girl jumped a bit; she had no idea that Luffy could speak at a volume that was less than eardrum shattering. For a moment she let her eyes examine him as though he were a mildly interesting example of some odd art movement, then allowed herself a grin and lightly swatted her companion on the shoulder.

"This is like the pirate version of Temple Mount or Mecca or whatever, right?" Melissa said, and ignored the way the boy's face screwed up in confusion. "Let's get closer."

Luffy continued to look confused until his face split into its normal grin.

"Yeah!" he yelled, pumping his fist into the air. "Let's climb the execution stand! Last one to the top buys the winner meat!"

He sprinted off before the American could protest, almost leaving a trail of fire behind him from his sheer speed. Melissa stared after him. Maybe this was the moment when she could do an exit stage left-No.

"Damn it, Strawbro, I don't have any money!" she shouted after him, shaking her fist at his retreating back in what she hoped was a menacing manner. Laughter floated back to her and, with a soft curse, she began her uneven hobble towards the scaffolding.

"What is he, five?" the brunette huffed.

She had only taken a few steps, and Luffy was already at the top, swinging his legs from the edge and ever-honest laughter shaking his entire body. A little girl, probably only about six years old, tugged at her mother's skirt with a sticky hand and pointed enthusiastically up at the laughing teen.

"Mummy, Mummy!" the little girl cried in a voice like a mouse. "I wanna climb the thing, too! Lemme climb the thing! Mummy, why does he get to climb the thing?"

Her mother snatched the child's wrist, cast the pirate on the scaffolding a look that would have had three hundred battle-crazed Spartans pissing themselves, and dragged her child away. Melissa smiled wryly.

"Oh, wow!" Luffy called out, shielding his eyes from the low glare of the sun. "So this is what the pirate king saw before he died!"

An irate man with an official-looking uniform and a build like a barrel yelled into a megaphone, "Hey you! Get down from there!"

The pirate boy had the decency to look confused, but not to look ashamed. "Why?"

"That execution stand belongs to the World Government!" the megaphone man shouted with exasperation. "So get down from there imm-!"

He was cut short by a large, spiked mace to the face. Melissa winced in something like sympathy. That was definitely going to need some stitches, not to mention the high probability of brain damage.

The wielder of the mace was a tall woman wearing a heart-patterned cloak and a wide-brimmed hat. She stood confidently, unflinchingly, as though bludgeoning a man in a crowded square in broad daylight was a completely normal thing to her. All things considered, it probably was. Melissa couldn't see her face, but the realization of who she was hit the injured girl like a kick in the head.

"Shit, Alvida, that's what happens at Loguetown, damn it," she cursed as, all around her, tourists and locals alike began to flee from the terrifying pirate woman. Their screams were knives that ripped through the air, assaulting eardrums and overpowering whatever Alvida cooed to her victim.

Her next words, however, beat the knives with the cutting power of an electric buzz saw.

"I've been looking all over for you, Luffy! It's been a while," she called out congenially, the smallest prick of danger in her words. "Don't tell me you've forgotten my face?"

Those who had been fleeing began to swoon, men and women alike fawning over the beauty of the mace-wielding woman.

"What a fine dame!"

"She's got to be the most beautiful woman for sure!"

"_So_ pretty!"

"I hate to be the voice of reason," Melissa loudly stated with exasperation, "but aren't you all ignoring the fact that she just _bludgeoned_ a cop in the_ face_?"

She was ignored in favor of the silky, sultry voice of Alvida.

"You were the first man to ever hit my beautiful face," the woman proclaimed. "The way you handled me so roughly it left me," she paused for effect, "_breathless_."

Over the sound of the crowd swooning like romance novel heroines, Melissa clearly stated, "What a pervert."

The crowd whipped to face her in perfect unison. Even Alvida had turned to see who dared to insult her beautiful self, though her smile did not drop.

Staring back at the crowd in surprise (they'd actually listened?), the girl forced her body to stand a bit straighter and her mind to ignore the way her knees threatened to buckle with the burning feeling of pure stage fright.

'_Even Luffy's looking, hell_,' she thought before clearing her suddenly saw paper-filled throat.

"Look, ma'am" the teen began. "I don't know who the hell you are, but where I come from a woman of your… stature hitting on a seventeen year old boy is all kinds of creepy."

Alvida's smile twitched. Luffy grinned from his spot high above.

"What I'm saying is, you're a cougar, and it'd be nice if you stopped hitting on my under-eighteen friend up there," Melissa continued. "I doubt he has any idea what you're on about and who you are anyway."

The beautiful woman's smile dropped completely as her stance curled like a tiger about to pounce.

"You dare-?" she growled.

"Oh, I dare. I double dare. I triple dog dare. I quadruple dog dare, no take-backsies," the girl replied, before mentally adding, _'This is just getting ridiculous. I need to stop.'_

"Disgusting little…" the woman muttered. Had the American heard it, she would have agreed that she did indeed look quite disgusting and she was probably in dire need of a bath, but the whole square reverberated with Luffy's laughter. It bounced off of the facades of buildings and assaulted every ear in its way. It overpowered any other sound.

Alvida's face twitched unpleasantly and she turned her attention to her audience with a theatric flourish.

"Who is the most beautiful woman in all of the seas?" she shouted.

"You are!" they all cheered back.

"Yes, I am," the woman confirmed.

_'That's a very subjective title you've got there, ma'am,'_ Melissa couldn't help but think.

"There is not a man in the world that would not kneel before me," Alvida gracefully continued. "But I only like _strong_ men! Luffy, you will be mine at last!"

"Shut up," the boy shot back, a scowl forming around his words. "You're annoying. Who are you?"

The beauty's jaw dropped.

"You still haven't realized?" she all but shouted.

In that moment, men in uniforms toting guns entered the square from the south side, shouting, their shoes cracking like thunder against the stone pavement. Back tightening instinctually, Melissa's eyes darted towards them and she cringed.

'_Calm your tits, girl, they're not here for you,'_ she thought, pulling a few deep breaths into her lungs.

She should leave.

She should really, really leave.

"This is the police," yelled the officer at the forefront. "You are under arrest for harming an officer of the law!"

Alvida rolled her eyes. "You really think you can arrest me?"

The officers quarreled amongst themselves as to whether or not they could arrest such a gorgeous woman, their eyes full of hearts and tears. Next to them, the fountain shattered into shrapnel with a resounding crackle and 'BOOM'. Melissa squeezed her eyes shut and raised an arm to shield her face. Dust swirled into the air and rocks pelted the ground and the bodies of all within a few yards of the explosion. She felt the skin on her arm tear. A large, pointed chunk of the fountain flew towards Alvida, set to impale her, but she made no move to avoid it.

Instead she looked rather bored.

The piece of rubble deflected off of her at the last second and slammed into a nearby building, bringing the total property damage up to the low million belis.

Luffy's mouth hung open in surprise.

"My, my," Alvida said, her tone exasperated. "Wasn't that rather dangerous?"

A group of cloaked figures stalked up behind her, the leader of which cackling like a cartoon villain.

"My apologies," the cackler stated. "But with your smooth skin I knew you, at least, would be unharmed, my lovely Lady Alvida."

Luffy's gaze raked over the square, his head whipping from side to side comically.

"Alvida? Where?" he asked, his face twisted with confusion.

"I'm Alvida!" the woman screeched. "You idiot!"

"Eh, but something's not right…"

She winked and tore off her cloak, letting it fan out behind her.

"Haha, so you've noticed!" she exclaimed, ramping the ham up to unreasonable amounts. "My body has changed since I ate a Devil's Fruit! The name of my fruit was the Sube-Sube fruit; no attack can leave a mark on my beautiful skin! Unfortunately the fruit did nothing to change my beauty, but as you've pointed out my freckles did indeed disappear!"

"That's not what I was pointing out," Luffy replied.

'_What's wrong with freckles?'_ Melissa thought, rubbing the bridge of her, freckled, nose.

"In any case," the woman went on with her arms crossed over her chest, "if you're really fit to be my man, then you certainly cannot afford to lose to this person! I've teamed up with him for the sole purpose of finding you."

Cloaks flew into the air with the timed precision and thespian flare of a Broadway dance number. The only thing that would have made the pure ham of the situation break through the metaphorical roof would have been if there had been gratuitous use of jazz hands. If anything, the group had the dramatic posing down.

"Ever since that day I was blasted away," the cackler, now revealed to be the infamous Buggy the Clown, proclaimed, "I tenaciously fought my way back to my crew, all the while wishing for the day that I would kill you! What an adventure it was for I, who had no body! It was an adventure of merriments, hellish dangers, and friendships! A most grand adventure for the little Buggy, and after much perseverance-!"

The clown's face snapped to confusion and then to anger with the speed of a bullet train.

"Wait, why the hell am I telling you all that?"

'_Why, indeed?'_ Melissa thought.

Luffy then said something characteristically blunt and vaguely insulting, to which Buggy predictably screeched in anger. In the crowd, Melissa began to slowly make her way backwards and hopefully out of the firing line of any of the seemingly gun-happy pirates that the clown had dragged in with him. She stopped when a man with a checked scarf and what seemed to be an anime version of an undercut managed to stick Luffy in the executions stand's stocks.

By sitting on it.

The girl would have felt the urge to smack herself in the face if the situation hadn't been both so ridiculous and horribly tense. Luffy's cartoonishly surprised expression didn't help matters.

'_How the hell did he not notice the guy coming?'_ she growled internally.

Buggy began shouting again, half to Luffy, half to the crowd that was being threatened by pirates.

"Now then," the clown pirate began, "I shall commence your public execution! You should be honored! You get to die in the same place as the Pirate King!"

Buggy's posturing continued as Luffy struggled to scratch his nose, seemingly unfettered by anything other than that.

At the edge of the crowd, someone shouted, "Why the hell is he on the execution stand?"

Melissa turned her head to see the entirety of Luffy's crew, a grand total of four people, two of which carrying an abnormally large fish with an elephant-like nose, standing at the edge with varying expressions of disbelieve, incredulity, and exasperation. There was also a touch of annoyance, but she was beginning to believe that that was par for course when dealing with the straw hat boy. Her eyes quickly flicked back to the ruckus up on the platform.

"For the crime of angering me, I sentence you, Monkey D. Luffy, to a _flashy_ execution!"

Guns pointed towards the air and fired, people started hollering, and the crowd turned into straight mayhem. No one could hear what was being said between the two pirates on the platform, but from the boy's suddenly panicked face it was obvious that he had finally realized that he could quite possibly die in the stocks.

"Your flashy execution shall now be carried out for the public to see!" Buggy broadcasted.

A few more seconds of murmured words from the executioner, all of it more greater-than-thou posturing. Melissa frowned.

'_Shouldn't someone do_ something?' she thought moving forward a bit.

Luffy, however, had other ideas.

"I'm the man," he shouted out to all that could hear, "that will become the Pirate King!"

Shock passed through the crowd, and a low, confused murmur rippled back through.

"Pirate King…?"

"To say something like_ that_ in_ this_ town…"

"How outrageous."

"Just who is this kid…?"

Buggy merely smirked and raised his cutlass over his head, ready to decapitate the younger male.

A male voice shouted, "WAIT!"

Two men were charging the execution stand, one muscular and bandana'd and armed to the teeth with three swords, the other svelte and blond with a dog-ended cigarette between his lips. They were met with waves of Buggy's men. The two men tore through the fray like demons, legs striking and blades swirling.

Melissa gaped openly, hobbling backwards slightly_. 'How-? This world is scary.'_ Her shock at _how the hell people can even fight like that_ meant that she didn't pay attention to what happened next.

Cheerful last words were stated with a smile.

A cutlass swung.

And lightening struck the execution platform.

Granted, she did pay attention to the latter. It was nearly impossible not to. Especially when a skinny seventeen year old boy walked away from the smoldering wreckage without a scratch, donning his signature straw hat with a signature grin. The pirates that had been previously trying to fend off the boy's two crewmates dropped their weapons and their jaws on the ground.

Either the boy had the devil's luck, or a very powerful friend.

Marines began streaming into the square with guns at the ready, shouting at one another to block off the exits.

It was time to go for the three Straw Hat pirates. They sprinted out toward the street that would take them back to the docks where they ship and fellow crewmates were.

Except…

Luffy lunged forward, grabbed a certain brunette, crutched American and heaved her over his shoulder like a particularly confused and irate sack of potatoes, laughing all the while.

"Wh-what the actual-?" the girl sputtered. Buildings zoomed by as a boney shoulder dug into her stomach.

The boy just grinned. "You'd be too slow if you walked on your own!"

"That wasn't what I was-!" she protested.

The blond man with the cigarette, Sanji, growled, "Idiot, don't be so rough with a lady, and don't carry her like that!"

"Eh." Luffy blinked. "Then how am I supposed to carry her?"

Melissa felt anger burning behind her temples and in her gut. People ignoring her generally worked in her favor, but it just didn't seem like things worked that way with Straw Hat Luffy involved.

"I'm pretty sure this qualifies as kidnapping, _strawbro_" she seethed.

* * *

><p>AN: Hey there guys, long time no see. I apologize for the very fillerish chapter. (Or is it? I'm a horrible judge of what is or what is not filler.) I've been sitting on the first half of this for around a month now, and I've finally had the time to just sit down and write it, and most of it is just re-hashing events from the manga. Bleh. I was trying to get through Loguetown by the end of the chapter, but it looks like that'll have to wait until next time.

Which will hopefully be much sooner, but since I'm moving back to the States and vacationing in Asia this summer, we shall see.

Also, you know, uni in the autumn.

Anyway, thanks to all who reviewed last chapter, and to those who have added this story to their alerts and/or favorites! I'd say that this fic doesn't deserve it, but then I'm quite sure a friend of mine who also reads this will somehow find her way into my apartment and smack me, haha.

As always, questions, comments, and concerns go to the handy little review button!


	7. Adventure Start

**A/N**: Wow, hey ffdotnet. Long time, no see. Six months, if I am not mistaken. Sorry about that! Things have been busy, what with moving, and traveling, and uni. Y'all don't care about all that, though! Here's a chapter for those who want it!

**Disclaimer**: I do not own One Piece, but maybe...

* * *

><p><em>Chapter 7<em>: Adventure Start

Shouting men, hard soled shoes cracking with each staccato step, and ragged, gasping breaths all reverberated against the walls and pavement of the seemingly endless streets of Loguetown to the background drumming of lashings of water cracking against every surface they could hope to reach. The heavy rain, fast approaching nightfall, and the clamor left in the wake of the three absconding pirates plus kidnapped girl pushed the residents of the town of the beginning and end into the safety of their homes and shops.

The distant, bone-shaking rumble of thunder that rattled windowpanes and rib cages felt like the harbinger of something incomprehensibly huge looming on the horizon of the entire world.

For Melissa, the only things she could feel were nausea and the unmistakable sensation of a teenage boy's bony shoulder grinding into her abdominals accompanied by the clammy wetness of her rain-soaked clothes clinging to her skin. It was a rather miserable state to be in, and the brunette could feel herself die a little inside as she quickly got used to it.

Not that she hadn't been trying to get away, but all those sharp jabs to her straw hatted captor's kidneys hadn't aided her situation much.

With a resigned sigh, the American gripped the red fabric under her hands, gritted her teeth, and directed her vision to the hoard of men.

They had guns. Flintlocks, if her memory wasn't completely useless at the thought of being shot again. An organization like the Marines should be able to teach at least some of their men to shoot such a lock in wet weather, so why was no one firing...?

The brunette groaned. She was forgetting something again, and it was tickling the edge of her brain like a furious mosquito bite.

"Marines are still following you," she intoned, shoving any trace of anxiety to the little box in the back of her mind.

Luffy craned his rubbery neck to verify the statement, not even looking surprised or bothered at the confirmation, before saying, "Wow, really? Those guys are really persistent."

He then turned his attention to the two men slightly ahead of him.

"Hey," the boy called out to them, "should we beat them up? They're annoying."

"Ignore them. Nami-san said to get to the ship as soon as possible," was the blond man's simple reply, tossed behind him without even a glance back as though brushing aside someone's inquiry over whether or not to fight a squadron of Marines was a daily occurrence.

Melissa's expression deadpanned and she bit back a slew of sharp comments as a wave of nausea hit her again.

"Strawbro, put me dow-," she began to groan.

However, the voice of a woman drowned her out.

"RORONOA ZORO!" the woman shouted, mouth hard and brow furrowed in a sort of righteous anger. She stood in the middle of the street not twenty meters ahead of the group. Her hair was cut at her chin, dark as the black of her eyes. A sword hung sheathed from her hip, but even the most dense of fools could tell that that would change in a moment if she had her way.

"To think you were Roronoa Zoro!" she continued, grip on the hilt of her katana. "How dare you trick me!"

Sanji shot the green-haired man a look that would have melted the bones of a lesser person.

"What did you do to that lady?!" he demanded, murder dripping off of his words.

The swordsman predictably ignored the other man, his attention instantly honing in on a possible new challenge.

"So, you're a marine," he said.

It was a statement, not a question, so the Marine woman did not answer, but instead came forth with a declaration of her own.

"I_ will_take Wadou ichimonji from you," she proclaimed, an inch of the steel of her blade glinting in the minute light.

Zoro smirked. "Try it."

Bodies lunged into action and swords clashed, the sharp sound flashing silver through the already chaotic soundscape. Flat steel ground against flat steel and muscles locked with forcibly restrained kinetic energy. Despite the initial stalemate, it was obvious who would win this exchange.

The male of the two swordsmen didn't spare his captain a look as he stated, "Go on ahead."

"Okay," the boy replied, completely unfazed.

The crew's cook, however, was a thread more fazed.

"What is that moron thinking, fighting a lady?" the blond screeched in outrage, looking ready to turn the sword fight into a severely lopsided and convoluted brawl.

Luffy grabbed the angered man's arm with the hand that was not currently keeping a nauseous art student slung over the black-haired pirate's shoulder.

"Let's go," the boy said, barely even breaking stride as he forced Sanji to let the duel fade behind them.

This rounded the blond's attention onto his captain and the girl slung over a rubbery shoulder.

"Why are you still carrying her like that?!" he yelled. "She's a _lady_, not a sack of potatoes!"

"Okay," Luffy replied.

"Let me take her! A woman needs a gentle touch, and you're obviously too stupid to realize that!"

"Naw."

"What do you mean 'naw'?!"

Melissa groaned, nausea biting at the back of her throat. "Strawbro, I swear to god, if you don't put me down I am going to vomit all over you."

Laughter was all the response she received, the jovially shaking shoulders only serving to jostle and irritate her further. It came to an abrupt halt when a tall Marine man with hair like steel and enough cigars in his mouth to make the brunette American wryly mutter 'gentlemen' under her breath came into view.

"Hey, who's that?" Luffy inquired, more curious than perturbed.

His cook let out an exasperated huff, "There's _more_?"

The cigar-smoking Marine stared down the Straw Hat captain for a moment, seemingly gauging the boy as he steadily approached, before speaking.

"Monkey D. Luffy?" he asked in a voice gruff enough to make any respectable 80s antihero weep with envy.

The pirate teen only blinked in confusion. "Who are you?"

"My name's Smoker," the man replied, either completely comfortable with or ignorant to the irony of his name. "I'm the captain of this Marine base."

He then raised his arm and they exploded into thick streams of incredibly dense white smoke. Melissa let out a small squeak of terror because _holy shit that guy's arms just turned to fucking smoke I don't care if this is an anime that shit is fucking unnatural why did I even wake up this morning I instantly regret every decision I've ever made ever._

"I won't allow you to escape!" Smoker declared as the smoke extending from him began to encircle the rubberman.

The American found herself dropped like a hot object to the hard pavement as Luffy yelled out in surprise, his middle surrounded by a thick snake of billowing, constricting whiteness.

_'Cant help but wonder if all those Marines from before were just trying to push us... them to this freak_,' she thought, shaking and staring as the boy frantically tried to fight against the smoke restraining him. _'I mean Jesus H Dick, that is terrifying_.'

"Bastard!" Sanji cussed as he launched a swift kick at the smoke man. His leg did not collide with intended flesh, but instead coiling tendrils as half of the Marine's body and face dissolved to plumes.

"Out of the way, weakling," Smoker growled. "White Blow!"

White slammed into the blond man's body with a force that, logically, condensed smoke should not have. He went flying across the street with little ceremony, hitting the front of a shop with a nasty crack the could have been splitting wood or bone.

Luffy gaped and shouted, "Sanji!"

"Gum Gum Pistol!" the straw hatted boy cried, launching his rubbery fist at their assailant, only for his punch to receive the same fate as his friend's kick.

Captain Smoker completely dissipated into shifting tendrils this time, the smoke condensing and reforming behind the young pirate.

"You're worth thirty million beli?" the man wondered aloud as he forced Luffy to become acquainted with the pavement by pushing the boy's head down and sitting on his back. "Too easy."

"I think not," a deep voice said.

The Marine's head whipped around in surprise at the interruption to see a cloaked man suddenly looming behind him. The man's tattooed face, more often cast in shadow, was only visible on that moment due to a bright crack of lightening that split the sky. Smoker's eyes widened.

"You!" he yelled.

Luffy's voice was muffled as he asked in confusion, "What? Who is it?"

Smoker ignored him in favor of the more dangerous criminal before him. "The government is looking for you."

"The world is awaiting our answer," the cloaked man spoke cryptically, a smirk stretched across the lower half of his face. "Storm!"

It was only a split second blast, but Wind ripped and roared through the street like a berserk beast, forcing frightened rain to run horizontal. Bodies were thrown through the air before finally slamming painfully against hard storefront and pavement.

Short and chaotic, it was all that was needed to give the Straw Hats their opening.

"Let's go, Luffy!" Zoro yelled as he sprinted onto the scene, apparently having won his sword fight. "Before they put this island on lockdown!"

The green haired man yanked his captain off of the ground with every intent of literally dragging him to the harbor. The boy sported a confused look on his face for a moment, possibly trying to wrap his head around his own exceptional luck.

"Huh?" Luffy said, and then his expression snapped to the urgency of a child who has forgotten their favorite toy. "Oh wait! Someone grab Mel!"

His swordsman tossed him a questioning look. "Who?"

"The funny girl!" the black haired pirate answered, as though it solved everything.

Zoro's expression blanked for a moment before switching to pure irritation.

"Do we really have the time?!" he snapped.

Luffy, however, crossed his arms and dug his heels into the ground, face a comically stubborn set of pursed lips and down turned brows. He wasn't going to move, and anyone who had known him for as long Zoro did knew that there was no arguing; The boy was the worst combination of a toddler and a steel wall.

That didn't mean the former bounty hunter was just going to give in without a fight.

"Luffy..." he growled.

"Zoro," the captain replied simply.

"I'll get her," spoke the voice of their cook. The two turned to see the man in question striding up to them, straightening his suit casually as though he had not only recently been slammed into a building by a man made of smoke.

Zoro snorted at the blond.

"Yeah, you would, ero-cook," the swordsman shot.

Predictably, the short-tempered Sanji rose to the bait and his face turned venomous. The danger of their situation won out, however, and stopped the man from launching the kick he was so desperately wishing to destroy his crewmate's face with. Fighting could wait until after he retrieved the lady and was reunited with his beautiful Nami-san aboard the ship.

"Just get moving, shitty swordsman," he ground out before turning heel.

During this time, Melissa had been battling to push a burgeoning mental breakdown into the nice, dark box in the back of her mind. People weren't supposed to be able to turn into smoke, or stretch like rubber, or control the weather or whatever the hell it was that Dragon had done but they could because this was an anime and why was she even here?

Nothing made sense but everything made sense because she had seen it before in the pages of volumes upon volumes of books and she just wanted-

The brunette's reverie was cut short by someone picking her up off the ground.

"My apologies, mademoiselle," Sanji said as he flashed her a smile.

"Wha...?" she began, startled and confused before her brain finally caught up with the situation. By then it was too late and she was being carried bridal style by the blond man as he raced to catch up with the others.

All the American could do was let out a horrified, indignant sputter.

* * *

><p>The Going Merry was fighting a losing war with the turbulent black waves as she struggled to stay in port for a moment longer. Her navigator, Nami, peered out at the docks with squinted brown eyes, searching through the thick veil of stormwater for signs of her crewmates.<p>

"Where are those idiots?" the thief complained as the caravel continued to buck beneath her.

"Hey!" an all too familiar voice called in the distance, the figure obscured by rain.

"Luffy!" Usopp cried in recognition, straining to help keep the Merry tethered to the island. "Hurry up! I can't hold this rope much longer!"

"Wow, it's raining really hard now," the straw hatted boy commented as he and the other two pirate men, plus one disgruntled girl, reached the edge of the dock.

"We're back, Nami-san!" Sanji called out in his usual lovesick fashion.

"If I get pneumonia and die, I'm haunting all of you forever," Melissa muttered with a deadpan expression. She was either ignored, or no one could hear her over the crashing sea.

"Hurry up, we have to go now!" Nami shouted.

* * *

><p>When Captain Smoker returned to Loguetown's Marine base, he was dripping, confused, and, above all, annoyed in a way that only a hunter who has lost their prey can be. The only tip off to his mood was the fact that his expression was a bit more gruff than usual.<p>

One of his subordinates approached him as he entered, sure to salute heavily as he went.

"We are very sorry, sir!" the lower ranked Marine apologized formally. "Because of the heavy storm, Buggy and his crew were able to escape!"

Smoker ignored him and instead turned to one of the other officers.

"Prepare a ship," the White Hunter ordered. "I'm following that boy."

The other men in the room all glanced at one another in various shades of ill-concealed confusion. After a moment one managed to speak up,

"Follow him, sir?"

"I'm going to the Grand Line," Smoker stated shortly.

"What?!" all his subordinates cried in horror.

Except one.

"I'm coming with you," Tashigi's jaw was stubbornly set as she said this despite her haggard and drenched appearance.

"You too, sergeant?!" chorused the men.

"I will never forgive Roronoa!" she declared, the fire of determination in her dark eyes. "I'll defeat him with my own hands!"

One of the men turned to Smoker, his face open with obvious panic. "But you have to stay! If you go what will you tell headquarters?"

"I'll tell them I don't take orders from anyone," the smoke man growled. His tone told them all that there would be no more discussion of the matter.

* * *

><p>Somewhere in Loguetown the Buggy pirates hid, patiently waiting for the end of the raging storm and their opening to completely break free of the prison that the town of the beginning and end had become.<p>

Alvida raised her eyebrows, though the expression did nothing to mar her beautiful face.

"What? To the Grand Line?" the woman questioned.

"Yes, it's a choice moment right now," Buggy replied with a smirk. "I still have something to settle with that rubber man. We shall go there! The Grand Line!"

* * *

><p>The brunette girl coughed sharply as blood dissipated into the toilet water. Upon being forcibly boarded onto the Going Merry with the trio of males, she had dashed to where she had vaguely remembered the bathroom to be and proceeded to make due on her promise to throw up.<p>

The American was only slightly disappointed that it wasn't all over Luffy.

He deserved it.

_'I am the exact opposite of okay right now,' _Melissa thought miserably._ 'Pretty sure vomit isn't supposed to contain blood, or, you know, be entirely blood._

With much effort, mostly because of the ship being tossed about by the waves like a ball from pondering hand to pondering hand, she managed to heave herself over to the sink with quaking, protesting limbs and stare into the mirror. Her small sense of vanity died a horrible, painful death at the sight of deep night sky circles highlighting wide, shaky eyes and clinically white skin contrasting under dark freckles and decidedly angry red scratches.

Not to mention that her hair was doing its best impression of a nest.

_'Woah, okay,'_ she thought with a frown,_ 'the drowned rat look. Why am I even surprised?'_

A trembling set of hands set to trying to tame the hair rebellion as the teen allowed herself to sink into deeper thought.

_'What's with this-ow-supreme luck I've been having, anyway? Fuck, ow. First, I'm fucking thrown into some sort of stupid fanfic situation, and I meet Monkey D Luffy and Nami of all the possible people in the world.'_

Fingers paused and eyes raked over her reflection, assessing whether the job was passible or not. She gave a short nod before turning on the faucet and dipping down to scrub at her face and neck.

_'Then, I run off into a situation that was, frankly, a thinly veiled attempt at suicide and I get picked up by the Marines.'_

Melissa pressed a soft hand towel to her face when she was sure that she would not be getting any blood on it.

_'The Marines try to kill me, I get shot, and then, surprise surprise, I run into Monkey D Luffy again.'_

With a sigh the girl looked over her clothes. They were drenched, stained, torn, and frankly smelled faintly of mildew. She wrinkled her nose. She would have to borrow some, damn.

The brunette hoped the price wouldn't be too high. Owing people was never something she enjoyed.

_'And now I'm stuck on a ship full of dreamers because Luffy thought I was _funny_.'_

Her lips pursed at the thought. She was not _funny_. She was not even close to funny. If she were the Earth, funny would be outside of the seeable universe. The American was that far from funny.

She allowed an annoyed puff to escape through her nose.

_'I shouldn't even be complaining, I just wish-'_

A loud crash caused Melissa to nearly crack her head on the ceiling because _gunshots and pain and I don't want to die-_

She slapped herself. Hard.

_'Get a hold of yourself already! Think! That was probably that whole thing where they state their dreams and kick open a barrel of grog on the deck! It wasn't a goddamn gun, you idiot!'_

A sigh fell from her lips as Melissa observed her reflection again. It wasn't much of an improvement, but it was all she could do to make herself feel human again barring clean clothes, a thorough scrub, and a night's sleep.

_'I should probably go introduce myself or something,' _she finally decided, raking fingers through her miraculously less tangled hair and nodding firmly. _'Yeah.'_

Straightening her shoulders and trying to calm the burning anxiety forming in her gut, the American wretched the handle and pulled the door open...

... Only for it to let out a deafening shriek.

The whole crew, Luffy, Nami, Zoro, Sanji, Usopp, all turned at air-ripping noise, and their eyes all were like bullets tearing through the nervous teen's body.

"Umm..." she stumbled over what to say. Not even a word said, and the brunette girl was already screwing up. "Someone should probably see to that...?"

"Eh, Mel, where were you?" Luffy asked, head tilting to the side.

"Oh, you know, hiding in the bathroom and stuff..."

"Who the hell are you?!" Nami and Usopp demanded in unison. Then the ginger female's face seemed to spark with recognition.

"Wait, you're that girl," the navigator spoke unsurely, eyes narrowed and piercing with trying observe whether or not the girl before her was indeed _that _girl.

The teen in question shifted uncomfortably under the scrutiny. How nice it would have been to retreat back into the safety of the bathroom...

"Yeah, uh, hi. I'm Melissa," she introduced herself, words practically dripping with awkwardness. "Your captain and, um, the blond sir sort of kidnapped me. Well, I mean... yeah, no, that's exactly what I meant. In actuality. Yes."

Silence reigned, only broken by the troughs of rain being upended over their heads and the lashing of the waves against the hull.

"Whaaaaaat?!" four of the crew chorused in shock.

Luffy merely laughed, loud and hard, clutching his stomach as he doubled up.

Usopp swatted Sanji on the arm.

"Why are you even surprised?" the long-nosed liar questioned. "She says you helped!"

"But I didn't- I wasn't-" the blond cook sputtered, apparently having a mental breakdown at the thought of having unknowingly helped kidnap a _lady_.

_'I wonder if jumping ship will kill me,'_ Melissa thought as she watched the crew dissolve into vaguely comical chaos.

* * *

><p>"So these are all the bad trips?"<p>

Purple Haze groaned at the sound of that so very familiar voice. He'd unleashed his hallucinogenic powers on the island, causing the proper amount of mayhem for him and his people to slink on in and search, but there were always mess ups. Some idiot got too enthusiastic, decided to mess with the tripping victims, or the haze didn't stretch far enough and someone was sane enough to fight back.

And then there were the bad trips.

There were always the bad trips. The people who would never go back to sanity, the people whose trips took the southbound train to Fuck That town and reared up some seriously disturbing distortions that straight broke their minds.

He didn't need this woman trying to go all guilt trip on him.

"Don't start being all sour panda about it, Marie Jayne," the Parasite stated, not even bothering to glance at the person he was addressing. "Someone as _natural_ as you wouldn't get it."

Marie Jayne pressed her darkly painted lips into a thin line. She was a violin of a woman, small and all s-curves and rich dark finish. Her voice was more of an oboe, though, and it was a fact that annoyed even her. She crossed her bow arms across her chest and saddled the man in front of her with a hefty glare.

"That's racist, Haze," the dark woman warned as he began searching through his jacket.

"I don't care much for all that conversation right now," Purple Haze replied with a frowned as he dug his hand into one of his brightly colored, striped sleeved. "You know my stance on all that."

"You mean your _lack_ of stance."

"Yes, exactly, now you're catching on, little miss sexist."

"I'm not sexist, you-!"

"Pig?" He hummed a bit as he pulled a thin, blue glass pipe from up his sleeve and placed it between his teeth.

"I was thinking more along the lines of bastard."

Haze glanced at Jayne for a moment, taking careful note of her offensive stance and smile that was far too toothy to be entirely friendly.

"Why are you here?" he asked slowly, pointedly, without his usual fanfare.

"That's a bit to the point."

"As much as I like our banter, senseless chatter is really fucking annoying. You hate me because I am the worst sort of ignorant man, I don't even have an opinion on you other than nice tits. It's been established, we've cut the big red ribbon and popped the champagne. Who sent you?"

The dark woman scowled, teeth baring and eyes narrowing, looking bodily ready to throw herself into a whirlwind of a rant. Haze blinked at her innocently and waited for the routine tirade to begin.

It did not.

"Lotus wants to see you," Marie Jayne snapped.

The striped sleeved man groaned in annoyance, "Are you serious? Ain't no one got time for that brat."

"Well make some time."

"I don't wanna."

"You...!" Jayne yelled, a series of curses ready to burst from her painted mouth. "Do you think Lotus would be calling _you _of all people if this wasn't important?"

The Parasite gnawed on the delicate pipe balanced in his mouth for a moment. He really had nothing to lose from such a meeting, but his dislike of Prophet types like Lotus was legendary for a damn good reason. Purple Haze doubted the exchange would go without conflict, and conflict among Parasites was always a bloody, terrible mess of uniquely disturbing circumstances. He stopped chewing as a thought occurred to him.

"You've got no idea what's going on, do you?" the man asked, not an inch of grace to it.

Her deepening scowl told him everything he needed to know.

"Well then." He stood, brushing imaginary dirt off of his trousers. "Point me to the yellow brick road because I guess I'm off to see the wizard. Where's my cute dress and ruby slippers?"

"I hope you get _eaten_, Haze."

"Bet you'd be first in line to do the _butchering_, huh?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN**: There you go! We're out of Loguetown, onward to... stuff. The next chapter is already in the works, so it should be expected sooner rather than later.

If you see any errors, please feel free to drop it in a review.

Actually, just drop a review if you have anything to say. I'd really appreciate it!


	8. Screw-up Queen

_Disclaimer_: If I owned One Piece, it would be on hiatus for months on end and no one wants that!

* * *

><p><strong><em>Chapter Eight:<em> Screw-up Queen**

It was technically morning, even if the sun had not yet made its grand entrance on the eastern stage of the sky. Waves lapped gently against the hull of the Going Merry, causing the caravel to lull from side to side, side to side, in a soothingly repetitive rhythm. It was a stark contrast to the evening before when the assault of the angry, ink colored sea had cut introductions short with the threat of flooding the deck and capsizing the ship. The thunderclouds more than likely still held the ghosts of the shrilled orders from the Merry's navigator, but they were long gone now.

It had been well into the night when the waves had finally calmed down enough for the crew to relax, Melissa groggily remembered as she stiffly rolled off of the small sofa that was bolted to the floor of Nami's room. The brunette quietly hissed in pain as the simple action tugged sharply at her stitches and further irritated her already violently protesting wounds. The night before, she'd been swept up in trying to keep the ship afloat, obeying orders that made little to no sense to her horribly less than sea savvy brain, and it had been some form of hell.

Her leg had given out more times than she was willing to admit.

She'd dry heaved a handful of times.

Worst of all, at least by her count, the freckled teen had nearly dropped her glasses into the relentless barrage of water and wind. Maybe it was stupid, but Melissa preferred being half dead to being half blind.

After a final precarious tip of the deck, the girl's memories blurred together into a hazy mush of uncomfortable wetness, Nami's greedy grin, and sinking into the heavenly cushions of an impossibly, luxuriously comfortable sofa.

The brunette frowned a bit, poking at the angry, red, stitched flesh on her shoulder with more than a fair bit of self consciousness. The pajamas the Straw Hat navigator had, assumedly, given her were _small_. It was not that they didn't fit, no, the problem wasn't in the sizing. They were just _small_; a camisole that just barely covered her stomach, a pair of shorts that were a few square inches of fabric away from being panties.

Years of body shyness came rushing to the forefront as the young woman spent several minutes alternating between curling up into a ball in order to hide the exposed skin and fighting with the scant pieces of fabric, willing them to magically defy the law of conservation of mass and somehow become larger.

It didn't work.

'_I can't even complain, really_,' Melissa thought with an air of defeat. '_They're actually really cute. I just... why. This is uncomfortable_.'

After a few more minutes of struggling, she finally gave up with a deep sigh. The girl stalked across the floorboards, grabbed her glasses from the bar that sat in the corner nearest to her, pushed them onto her face, and glanced through the dark room at the clock on the desk. It read half past four in the morning. She very nearly threw herself back onto the cushions with a loud, obnoxious, bratty huff, but the dramatics might have awoken the still-sleeping lump of covers and splayed limbs on the nearby bed. Melissa snorted in amusement as she tugged the ladder down from the ceiling hatch with a small bit of difficulty. No one looked like a fairy princess while sleeping, but the ginger navigator seemed to verge on the far extreme side of sprawling, sheet entangled inelegance.

The brunette was sure she heard the other female's nose whistle a bit with every exhale.

'_Don't laugh, don't laugh_,' Melissa reprimanded herself as she ascended through the hatch into the storage room above, her shoulder and hamstring screaming with every motion.

She quickly exited the store room out onto the deck. The horizon was beginning to lighten, but the higher dome of the sky was still a stretch of blackened velvet pierced by blazing stars.

'_Still enough light to see by_,' the girl thought absently, adjusting her glasses as she gazed up. '_So many stars...'_

Her gaze wandered to the empty crow's nest and she gave pause.

Strange.

'_Shouldn't someone be on watch?_'

The otherworldly teen frowned at the thought. If someone else on this sleepy ship was awake, that was fine with her, but she would have preferred to know where they were. The crawling sensation of someone moving about outside of her vision was not pleasant, especially on a ship full of virtual strangers. Despite her slightly frayed knowledge of canonical One Piece events, these were _people _who had a fair few more dimensions to their beings than characters drawn out on a page. That made them, by nature, unpredictable, maybe even dangerous.

More like definitely dangerous.

They _were _pirates, after all.

_'I should get some tea_,' the nervous high school student decided with a nod, making her way up the steps to the kitchen, a hand raking through her hair. '_Good old, anxiety-ridding tea. Hell yes_.'

Like every other room in the caravel, the Going Merry's galley was small and obviously not meant to serve a growing band of plundering rogues. A few paces inside the door sat the helm, a waist high joystick-like contraption that was set into the floor and topped with the same absurdly cute ram's face that served as the figurehead. A pace or so beyond that was the plain, sturdy wooden table and set of benches that served as the eating area. Even beyond that, extending out of the corner onto the far wall, lay the cabinets and counters, stove and oven, and pots and pans that one would expect.

The brunette found, as she searched the room, that while the kitchen was not some clinically pristine model of inhuman perfection, it was meticulously ordered. Iron skillets, copper pots, pans of various metals were all hung in accordance to size and use. Spices and herbs were divided by their physical state and by potency. Packaged goods in the pantry were turned just so that the labels were easily ascertained at a glance. The sense that she was intruding on something, not exactly sacred, but intimate, itched at the back of her spine as she groped through cabinets and shifted the objects inside.

The girl made special note to make extra certain she left everything the way it had been when she arrived.

Between her frustratingly hobbling gait and attempting not to create a disturbance in the kitchenly force, it took thirty minutes for Melissa to finally emerge victorious from the kitchen with a steaming mug of unsweetened, unmilked Earl Grey. The citrus aroma that wafted from the translucent red liquid was pure comfort, like a grandmother's perfumed embrace. She let the scent mingle with the sea breeze as she breathed, slowly and steadily and serenely.

"Oy, what the hell are you doing?"

Melissa nearly slopped the comfortingly burning liquid down her front.

'_Well, there's our missing watchman_,' the girl thought wryly, turning to face the suspiciously narrowed gaze of Roronoa Zoro. '_I wonder if he managed to get lost on deck... okay, no, that's just rude. Don't be an asshole, Melissa_.'

"Huh?" she asked.

Her eloquence was positively _scintillating_.

Zoro did not seem to be particularly enraptured by the female's amazing diction, though it was hard to tell what, exactly, he thought; his expression had not budged an inch from narrowed eyes and firm mouth. Melissa cringed involuntarily. There was something about this man that was off-putting, intimidating.

It wasn't his appearance. He was hardly more than four or five inches taller than the freckled teen, and, while he may have been able to cultivate more muscle mass out of his frame than the average nineteen year old, there was still a strain of teenaged weediness to him that could only be hammered out by the progression of time.

Also, the haramaki around his stomach reminded the girl of a middle aged man desperately trying to hide his beer belly, and it was kind of hard to take someone seriously when their hair reminded you of a Chia Pet.

It was something in the set of the swordsman's firm jaw, in the way he seemed to grind his teeth a bit before preparing to speak, in the way the muscles of his back and neck knit, that made him loom over her.

Maybe this was what was known as a 'fine, manly spirit'...?

"What are you doing?" Zoro repeated, tanned arms folded across his chest.

"Oh, right," Melissa mumbled before physically having to force herself into a louder, more confident tone.

"Tea, sir," she stated, pointing at the mug with her unoccupied hand for added emphasis. "I was having a nice cup of... calming tea? ...Sir."

The man's left eye twitched a bit.

"Who has tea at five in the morning?" he asked.

"Me, apparently," she muttered in reply. The teen lifted her mug. "Want some? You look like you could use..."

The swordsman bristled. It wasn't an obvious, full body expression of suddenly mounting annoyance, but rather a tensing of the muscles around the eyes, and a slight shift of the jaw. It was something subtle and easily missed unless you just so happened to be used to people whose range of expressions could fit inside a quarter teaspoon.

For Melissa it was like a flashing red sign screaming at her to hightail it out of there.

"You know what," she said slowly, pointing to the far side of the deck where the absurdly adorable figurehead jutted out, "I'll just be over there, sir... not talking."

Without waiting for the man's response, brunette quickly scurried off in a manner that was more along the lines of a particularly awkward hobble on fast forward. Once she reached her destination, heart pounding and injured leg burning, the young woman slumped over the rail and took a long sip of tea. She winced.

'_Let it steep for too long_,' she thought, clicking her tongue in annoyance at the overly bitter taste.

By now the sun was making its debut on the horizon, the fiery orange orb casting molten gold onto the slate sea and pink and blue silk into the velvet sky. The bases of the light gray clouds that scattered through the air were burnished with fire.

'_I'd killed to be able to paint that,_' Melissa mused wryly. '_A watercolor set would be pretty nice right about now.'_

For a while the hazel-eyed female gazed out at the lulling waves, allowing herself to relax as the salty, damp sea breeze caressed her face.

Then, a loud _clank_ rang through the air.

Another quickly followed it.

And another still, until a steady progression of heavy metallic clanks became just as much part of the morning sounds as the lapping waves and groaning wood of the deck.

Melissa felt her eye twitch.

_Clank_.

_Clank_.

_Clank_.

The girl frowned and glanced over her shoulder to find the source of the sound. It didn't take more than a second to find it; on the upper deck, Zoro had stripped himself of his shirt and had set to work swinging about an iron weight that was far too big to be reasonable. The swordman's muscles shifted and bulged under tanned skin with each repetitive motion, his haramaki-wrapped stomach expanding and contracting with deep, even, controlled breaths.

Turning back away quickly, Melissa wondered if sweat tended to gather in the green belly-band.

Her nose wrinkled at the thought.

'_Gross_.'

* * *

><p>Sometime later the early-rising tea drinker had migrated to the kitchen for ease of brewing more of her signature unappetizingly bitter tea. She consumed three more cups during this time, and even stealthily ducked below deck, easily avoiding the training first mate and miraculously not awaking the sleeping navigator even after tripping over a bump in the rug and cursing loudly. The young woman retrieved some older newspapers from beside Nami's writing desk and carried them back with her into the kitchen in hopes that they would tell her something worthwhile, or, at very least, assuage her growing boredom.<p>

'_What is a Parasite, anyway?_'

That question was the first thing the bespectacled girl decided she needed to address. The answer to it, however, seemed impossible to discover. Articles mentioning Parasites were few and far in between, and when they did they were so laden with newspeak and propaganda that gleaning any sort of useable information was like trying to find Waldo in a hundred foot by hundred foot mural. It wasn't exactly impossible, but it would take much longer than a single morning.

One of the first bits of information that popped out was that they were a group of people, and that being a Parasite was not a willing decision.

Obvious.

The papers spoke of a predisposition toward violence and brutality, often without the pirate-like goal of pillaging. Their actions were portrayed as being senseless and animalistic, without cause or organization.

Obvious propaganda.

Yet those Marines she had come across had saw fit to capture a teenage girl who could usually only barely drum up enough ferocity to keep the younger members of the community service club from eating all the shawarma and baklava at the winter picnic fundraiser. Even then she would have had to throw in the threat of the towering club treasurer Omar Al Wasahi and his garbage bin lid hands.

Melissa removed her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose. She needed more information. Nothing as it stood made any sense, especially when she took into account the wanted poster she had found back when she had been spat out into the '_One Piece world_'.

'_Speaking of which, those Marines took my bag_,' the high schooler thought, pushing her empty mug to the side. '_I'm not too worried about the other stuff, but that poster can't work in my favor. Probably best to lay low for a while...'_

She grimaced.

'_That's not going to work if I stay on this ship_.'

As if on cue, a loud commotion arose on deck. The sounds of coarse shouts, thin, petulant whines, and someone receiving a thorough, repeated beating cracked through the otherwise peaceful morning, and Melissa found that she could only stare at the wooden kitchen door with wide eyes. Quickly, the clamor grew closer in a hurricane of sound that battered against the outer walls of the room.

When the noise finally reached it's peak, the kitchen door slammed open to reveal three males, two of whom were clinging to the third, namely the crew's increasingly irate blond chef. Luffy, Sanji, and Usopp were very much awake now, it seemed. The captain's stretched arms were wrapped around the black clad leg of the skirt-chasing man like some sort of mutated species of constrictor and the crew's sharp shooter was clutching at blue shirt tails for dear life.

"Saaaaaanji!" Luffy wailed, drawing out the name to the point where it only vaguely resembled a part of human speech. "Make me meat! Lots of meat!"

"Luffy, if you don't let go I'm not making you anything!" the cook snapped.

"But Sanji!" chimed in the whine of the long-nosed sniper.

"Don't you start in too, Usopp!"

'_Isn't this a little early to be so energe-_,' the American began to think before correcting herself with a wince. '_Straw Hat crew. Right_.'

"Sanji, meeaaaaat!" the rubber man sobbed, the despair on his face worthy of a Greek tragedy.

"Make us some food!" Usopp cried, his face twisting into an expression that mirrored his captains but nowhere near as anatomy defying.

"Yeah, we're huuuungry!"

"If you two don't let go I'll make it so you'll be eating through a funnel!" the chef yelled, either desperately trying to free himself from the two's grips, or trying to kick them both in the teeth at the same time.

"Uh," Melissa began awkwardly, her voice barely heard over the chaos, "good morning...?"

The perverted blond's gaze was the only one that darted towards her, the voice of a female apparently more important to him than the childish complaints of his crewmates. His angered expression and offensive posture dropped on eye contact into an expression that was a mix of surprise and mush, and Melissa could have sworn that she had seen his visible eye momentarily turn into a pink heart.

She again became painfully aware of how embarrassingly tiny her borrowed clothes were.

"Good morning, Mel-chan!" Sanji practically sang in a honey sweet voice that was directly at odds with his previous coarse yells. "Are you waiting for breakfast? Don't worry, I'll be with you in a moment~"

"Ah, no, I wasn't- please don't call me-" she stumbled to say, fingers picking distractedly at the bottom of her camisole, but her words were trampled over by Usopp's loud, indignant cry of, "That's not fair! We asked first!"

Luffy 'shishishi'd a bit before stating and ordering, "Hey Mel, you're a girl. Make Sanji give us food."

'_I really hope this calling me Mel thing doesn't become a thing_,' the freckled teen thought, her shoulders slumping and arms crossing.

"She will not!" the suit-clad chef growled.

He once again began struggling against the grips of the other two males. The sniper and the captain held on as valiantly as bull riders, but, like bull riders, they had to let go sometime. In a single swift movement Sanji finally managed to disentangle himself from the clutches of the boys and kick them firmly from the kitchen and onto the lower deck. He then slammed the door shut just as a rubbery set of fingers tried to worm themselves back in.

For a moment, the cook pressed his weight fully against the door. After a long minute of silence, his stance shifted and went upright, his back straightening and hands searching through his clothes. The on looking female heard the distinct click of a lighter followed by the thin, acrid scent of tobacco.

Melissa watched as the blond man peered out the window, conceivably for any sign that the two would be back for another round of the battle for breakfast. The brunette girl had begun contemplating paths of conversation, of which there were many, and escape routes, of which there were none, when the Straw Hat's chef appeared _right_ fucking _next to her _and-

A large cup was gracefully placed in front of her, the china saucer not even making a noise as it slid onto the wood surface. Inside the mug-sized cup was a brown liquid, a dollop of whipped cream, and a stick of cinnamon. Steam curled up into the air, along with a familiar scent that left the hazel-eyed female's mouth watering.

Her first coherent thought was, '_When the hell do he have the time to make hot chocolate?_'

"I apologize if you've waited long. Breakfast should be up shortly. Until then, please enjoy this token of my purest love~" the gallant man stated, charm factor running at the full force of ten other ladies' men, a dashing sort of smile stretching around his lit cigarette to top it all off.

The girl shifted uncomfortably.

"Uh, thanks," she muttered, staring intently at the cup in front of her. The American wrapped her hands around it, cradling the warmth.

After a moment, she carefully lifted it to her lips and took an experimental sip of the concoction. The rich, warm taste that filled her mouth was easily several thousand times better than overly bitter tea, which wasn't really saying much.

"This is really good, thank you so much!" the brunette found herself exclaiming, and turned to smile at the blond, only to find that Sanji had gone completely rigid, his visible eye noticeably widened and mouth dropped open.

"Is..." she hesitated, smile fading, "are you o-?"

Before she could finish, Melissa found herself pulled face-first into the man's chest. The acrid odor of tobacco and the clean scent of some indistinguishably spicy cologne invaded her senses, along with the feeling of arms around her and, oh hell, he was _nuzzling_ her hair-

The intensity of the bespectacled teen's internal screaming matched the building flush on her face.

'_Oh god, oh fuck, why is a guy hugging me?!'_

Sanji, meanwhile, began to monologue.

"Mel-chan, you're so cute! You're a naive princess, fallen from the ivory tower that once kept your innocence safe from the corruption of the world below!"

'_Oh my god, please let go of me, I'm going to die,'_ she thought,

"Oh, and how the darkness must have hurt, but don't worry!"

'_Oh my god, just let me go!'_

"Your shining knight is finally here to protect you, Mel-ch- No, Mel-hime~"

"Stop!" she cried, pushing the man away roughly.

The two stared at each other for a moment, Sanji's face pinched with confusion, Melissa's face practically on fire from embarrassment.

'_Oh fuck_.'

"I-I'm s-," she stammered, abruptly rising from her seat and painfully knocking her knee against the table in the process, "I've gotta go!"

"Mel-cha-?!"

She didn't listen to him finish as she raced out the door.

* * *

><p>The sun, though still low in the sky, was out and performing at full force. Melissa could feel its warmth against her back as she sat at the bottom of the steps, cradling her burning face in her hands and wallowing in her humiliation.<p>

'_I'm so stupid. I shouldn't be allowed around people ever.'_

A quiet growl of frustration escaped her lips. Of course she had screwed up, of course she had! It was practically her job to mess things up! She'd managed to royally botch interactions with two fifths of the Straw Hat crew and breakfast hadn't even been served yet, a feat that could only be accomplished by the absolute queen of failed socializing.

Not that she wanted to get along with the Straw Hats, no, she was leaving first opportunity she got inside the Grand Line.

The girl sighed, running a hand through her hair and tugging at it, hard; this was all way too much for a mediocre high school student like her to handle.

A pair of sandal wearing feet slapped into her field of vision.

She sighed and looked up at Luffy.

"Sup, Strawbro," the freckled teen greeted tersely, making sure to give the P an extra bit of pop.

"You didn't get any food from Sanji?" the boy asked, frowning with arms crossed over his chest.

"Sorry, I failed. His charm dazzled me into submission," was the first thing that popped into her head, and therefore what spilled from her mouth.

"Dazzled," the captain repeated blankly.

"Yep, like staring into a perfectly cut diamond."

"Charm," the Straw Hat captain said, face twisting in confusion.

"Exactly, like that diamond... only _magic_."

The boy's face continued to twist for several moments until it was almost painful to watch. Then, when the expression was at its most horribly contortionistic, it suddenly snapped back into a grin and the straw hat wearing teen doubled over with laughter. Melissa watched in wry amusement as Luffy seemed to try and laugh himself sick.

"Mel, play with us!" he demanded rather than asked when his laughing fit finally subsided.

"'Us'?" she asked.

"Me and Usopp!"

The American glanced to the side where Usopp was on the other side of the deck trying to make eye contact with Luffy and making vigorous X motions with his arms.

"Uh, I don't think..." she hesitated.

"C'mon, it'll be fun!"

"...Okay? I guess."

"No!" Usopp cried, sprinting up to them, his X-ing arms only moving faster to the point where they formed a blurred, flesh-colored X before him. "No way! Absolutely not! She's some kind of... kind of possessed-zombie-doll-demon thing! The Great Captain Usopp has a sense for these sorts of things! I once outed an entire village full of them!"

Luffy laughed heartily while Melissa just stared at the sharpshooter, eyebrow quirked and lips thinned.

"Mark my words, she's going to turn out to be a selkie-demon...thing!" the long nosed teen finished rambling, pointing at her in a way that would have been dramatic if his knobby knees hadn't been quaking.

The dark haired rubberman grinned. "It'd really cool if she was! Hey, Mel, are you a demon-zombie-squid?"

"Not last time I checked," the obviously human girl replied with a dismissive wave of her hand, "I'll keep you posted if I start rotting and growing tentacles, though."

"Awesome!"

"No, it's not awesome!" Usopp cried. "It's scary!"

"Naw, it'd be pretty awesome to have tentacles, I think," Melissa stated.

"YOU DON'T GET A VOTE!"

* * *

><p>About ten minutes later, the argument about whether or not a rotting tentacle monster would be a wise addition to the crew had dissolved into a sort of game of reverse tag where the person who was It was the one being chased, and if he or she were to be caught they would lose. There was no punishment for losing, but having Luffy, who was never It, barreling towards you at the speed of a large cannonball was enough to set anyone to running like hell, especially when his need for breakfast had given him a sudden inclination towards biting.<p>

Some time into Usopp's second time being It, a tangle-haired Nami appeared from below deck looking positively livid.

"WILL YOU IDIOTS BE QUIET?!" the ginger woman roared, fists balled and ready to strike the face of any person stupid enough to come within firing range.

Luffy and Usopp quickly dove behind a barrel, shrieking in the most manly of manners.

Melissa jumped a bit as the navigator rounded on her, the shorter woman pointing at her like a jab with a fencing foil.

"You," Nami said, the word punctuated with another stab of her finger.

The brunette girl visibly tried to swallow her fear. "Y-yes?"

"Why aren't you dressed yet?" the other female asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "I went through the trouble to set out some clothes for you, the least you could do is actually _wear _them."

"Oh!" Melissa exclaimed in surprise. "Oh, okay, I didn't see them, sorry. I'll go do that now."

Nami dimpled in reply with a smile that was far too innocent to be anything but the purest of evils. Melissa tugged at a few strands of her hair, letting out a sigh.

"W-wait, _wait_, how much does it cost?" the freckled girl asked.

The orange haired woman's grin broadened to an expression not unlike a cat that has a mouse dangling from its teeth. She unfolded her arms and curled the tips of her thumb and pointer finger together, displaying the gesture to the other female.

"Fifty thousand beli a week," the thief stated, her tone and expression dropping to a serious, business like manner.

Melissa openly gaped at the navigator, her jaw dropped as though its hinges had been broken.

_'Th-that's an absolutely absurd amount of money! It has to be!'_

Nami continued to speak, "This is, of course, taking into account that you don't want to be on this ship, so included in the cost of my services is the cost of room and board. I will also be placing interest on each week that you don't pay, two-hundred seventy-five percent interest to be exact, which you should be thankful is less than my usual rate."

The brunette female slowly lowered herself into a sitting position on the deck, her hand tightly pressed against her mouth. She was going to be sick; this was way, way too much. How could anyone expect her to be able to come up with that much money? It had to be five hundred dollars at least!

"It was originally one hundred thousand a week," the thief stated finally, "but, considering that you seem to have fallen into a bit of a sore spot since the last time I saw you, I gave you a discount."

The ginger woman gave the nauseous teen a bit of a considering look. "And I don't think you'll be here long enough to rack up too much of a debt."

"What are you talking about?" came Luffy's voice from behind his and Usopp's barrel hideout. "Mel's not leaving."

The girl in question gave the straw-hatted boy a disbelieving look. Nami merely rolled her eyes and gestured to the storeroom and its entrance to her quarters.

"The clothes are on top the dresser," she stated.

The overwhelmed brunette nodded numbly, pushing herself up off the deck shakily.

"Oh, okay, thanks..." she responded.

* * *

><p>Melissa let out a quivering sigh of relief as she examined the garments that had been laid out for her. In comparison to the many imaginings in the many stories on the internet that had addressed the <em>'borrowing Nami's clothes<em>' cliche, the situation presented to the brunette was shockingly practical, though not worth the arm and leg she'd be paying for it; a loose yellow tank top of some soft, thin fabric, and a pair of dark brown linen walking shorts. Not something the freckled teen would have picked out for herself, but someone who had been wearing the same ratty t-shirt and mildewy jeans for weeks couldn't find it in her heart to complain. (Except for about the heaps of cash she'd somehow have to magically attain in exchange.) They were clean, near pristine in their condition, and would cover the puckered, coarsely stitched bullet holes in her skin.

There was something missing, however.

"Bra," she suddenly spoke aloud, snapping her fingers in realization, and then she frowned in consideration. "Might as well bind my chest instead. Rather not be running around feeling like I've got two cantaloupes strapped to my chest."

A quick turn over of the drawers revealed a roll of sturdy athletic bandaging, the sort her eldest brother used to wrap his ankles in for basketball. She winced involuntarily as she thought about him. Thanks to an age difference of seven years, they'd never been very close, but the possibility that she might never be able to see him or the rest of her family again hurt. Even after weeks alone on that tiny boat, rolling it over and over in her mind until the broken edges of it had sliced everything to shreds, even after shoving it into the tiny box in the back of her mind of rotting issues that can be solved later, it still hurt like someone was twisting a knife between her ribs.

The girl sighed, raking her fingers through her hair.

"No reason to be thinking about all that," she chastised as she slapped herself in the forehead. "I refuse to become some sort of angsty, self-pitying, self-absorbed _douche_! Nope, not now! Not even when I have to... pay... all that... money..."

The girl crumbled for a moment, nausea again scratching at the back of her throat, but quickly composed herself. With a final, decisive nod, Melissa quickly shed her borrowed pajamas and dressed. Wrapping her chest proved to be more challenging than she had expected, but after a few tries she finally managed something that she could deem acceptable.

* * *

><p>Breakfast had the combined din of five high school cafeterias with less farcical social politics and more cries of "Sanji, more meat!" or "Booze, dumbass cook!" and other loud squabbling. Melissa found that she could have gone the entire meal without saying a word, and she did except for when she stopped to stutter out an embarrassed 'thank you' to a surprised Sanji.<p>

The man had smiled and swooned ("Ah, Mel-chan~ You're so polite~"), but hadn't moved to hug her again, which she was grateful for.

The wooden table had creaked under the weight of the many courses, most of which were meat dishes to sate the endless hunger of the captain. There had also been cups of fruit, flakey pastries, and a light miso soup with glass noodles and seaweed. Melissa had lingered on what to take as the straw hat boy next to her, who had been the first to plop himself down on the bench, crammed food past his rubbery lips as though he hadn't been allowed the luxury of food all his life.

Breakfast ended more quickly than should have been allowed, and all headed out to the deck, barring the chef who was busy battling with the grease encrusted casualties of the meal.

"The weather's really nice today. Looks like the storm's well behind us," Nami observed after a few minutes while pulling out a lawn chair and settling herself comfortably into it.

There was a murmur of agreement from those on deck. Everyone seemed to settle into the place they were most comfortable. Luffy clambered onto the ram figurehead. Zoro sprawled himself out on the deck and fell asleep. Usopp pulled out a box labeled 'Usopp Factory' and began working on something of unknown properties. Nami lounged in her chair. With no idea what to do with herself, Melissa sidled up to the railing next to the captain's perch after a moment of deliberation and sat on it with her legs dangling above the blue waters below.

The sun had risen even further into the sky by the time that Usopp turned away from his inventing, frowned, and squinted into the distance.

"Hey," he called out, "what's that? Birds?"

"That's boring," Luffy stated with disinterest. He was not one for bird watching unless those birds had the ability to shoot lasers out of their beaks.

"It looks like they're circling something," the sharpshooter stated, pulling out a pair of binoculars and squinting into them. "Yeah, they're definitely circling something."

"Maybe there's a dead body?" Melissa suggested, while swinging her legs absently.

Usopp nearly dropped his binoculars.

"What?!" he screeched.

The American blinked and turned to look at the trembling long nosed boy, trying to communicate that she hadn't been making a serious suggestion, and, yes, she did think that a dead body would be a _bad _thing.

"Are there any other places where they're swarming?" Zoro called out with a wide yawn.

Usopp shook his head and said, "No."

"Then it's not a dead body," was the swordsman's reply, and with that he seemed to drop back into slumber.

"Might be a school of fish," Sanji proposed as he walked up while wiping his hands with a dish towel, cigarette dangling from his lips. "Birds tend to follow them, trying to pick them out of the water."

"Fish?" Luffy repeated with what could only be described as a hungry grin, a bit of drool rolling out of the corner of his mouth. "Aw yeah, lunch!"

"We just ate!" cried in unison more members of the crew than should be possible.

The rubberboy didn't listen, quickly pulling his arm back and shooting it out to grab whatever was out there. Melissa suppressed a shudder. The human body just wasn't supposed to _do _that.

A few seconds later the captain's hand sprang back clutching its bird pecked prize.

It was a little girl, probably aged somewhere between eight and twelve. Her hair was pulled from her face in a mousey colored braid, and she wore a strange yellow-brown tunic dress and a conical hat. She was also sopping wet from chest down, covered with a thin layer of salt where she wasn't, and had a few pieces of seaweed stuck to her.

The Straw Hats, plus their kidnapee, stared at crumpled girl in various expressions of shock.

"That's not a fish," the crew's chef said dryly, breaking the silence.

Melissa sighed.

'_This is that damn dragon filler, isn't it?' _the exasperated teen thought.

* * *

><p><em><strong>AN:**_ I should have worked on this for another week, but I got impatient so hehehahahoho.

Hey! Long time no see! Though I doubt I have any readers who were around for the last update anymore, hahaha. I've been busy with university, as usual, which is a major pain.

This chapter nearly clocks in with six thousand words, which is the longest chapter I've ever written for anything _ever_. So I fucking pat myself on the back for that if no one else does. I'll probably work on making chapters shorter so I can put them out faster. Maybe.

I'm going to predict that people might not be too impressed with my decision to do the Warship arc, but hold on! It's not going to be the same exact, plot-holey arc you remember, and it'll, if I manage to pull this off, be essential to later plot developments.

Anyway, have anything to say about this chapter? Want to sing my praises, or get into a fight with me about my awful characterization and rampant cliches?

Then leave a review as you go!

I'll happily reply to any questions!


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